LIBRARY 

STAT?  TEACfEH-S'G'L-.EGE 
SA.TA   BAftS/.rtA.CALIEtRNIA 




The  Writer's  Art 


LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


The  Writer's  Art 

BY  THOSE  WHO  HAVE  PRACTICED  IT 

SELECTED  AND  ARRANGED 

BY 

ROLLO  WALTER  BROWN 


CAMBRIDGE 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1924 


COPYRIGHT,  I  92 1 
BY  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

Third  Impression 


PRINTED  AT  THE  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  U.  S.  A. 


on  s^^^Sc^^ 


.  .  .  Well,  we,  who  have  gone  further  into  those 
troubles,  believe  that  we  can  help  you:  true  we  cannot 
at  once  take  your  trouble  from  you;  nay,  we  may  at  first 
rather  add  to  it;  but  we  can  tell  you  what  we  think  of  the 
way  out  of  it;  and  then  amidst  the  many  things  you  will 
have  to  do  to  set  yourselves  and  others  fairly  on  that 
way,  you  will  many  days,  nay  most  days,  forget  your 
trouble  in  thinking  of  the  good  that  lies  beyond  it,  for 
which  you  are  working.  —  William  Morris. 


PREFACE 

The  underlying  idea  of  this  volume  originated 
several  years  ago  in  a  period  of  very  pleasant  collab- 
oration with  Professor  N.  W.  Barnes,  now  of  the 
University  of  Chicago.  In  1911-12  when  we  were 
completing  The  Art  of  Writing  English  we  decided  to 
publish,  as  a  companion  volume  to  the  college  text- 
book, a  book  of  prose  readings  made  up  of  what 
writers  themselves  had  said  about  writing.  Before 
we  had  brought  the  material  together,  however,  my 
own  interests  drew  me  to  another  task,  and  Pro- 
fessor Barnes  was  called  to  a  special  field  where 
matters  of  immediate  import  have  ever  since 
claimed  his  attention.  Recently  when  I  turned  to 
the  volume  to  bring  it  to  completion,  I  found  that  in 
certain  respects  I  had  departed  from  our  original 
purpose.  I  wish,  nevertheless,  to  make  grateful 
acknowledgment  of  all  that  Professor  Barnes  con- 
tributed, and  to  express  my  appreciation  of  the 
eager  sympathy  with  which  he  has  followed  the 
book  into  its  present  form. 

I  wish  also  to  express  my  thanks  to  Professor  G. 
L.  Kittredge,  of  Harvard  University,  Professor  F. 
W.  Chandler,  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati,  and 
Mr.  Harold  Hawk  for  valuable  suggestions;  to  Pro- 
fessor F.  N.  Scott,  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 


viii  PREFACE 

for  his  kindness  in  tendering  me  the  fruits  of  his 
painstaking  correction  of  Lewes's  Principles  of 
Success  in  Literature;  to  a  number  of  publishers, 
specifically  mentioned  later,  for  the  privilege  of 
using  copyrighted  material;  to  Professor  G.  B. 
Woods  and  Mr.  Allen  Crafton,  of  Carleton  Col- 
lege, for  their  aid  in  the  reading  of  proofs ;  and  finally 
to  my  wife  for  her  inspiration  and  her  thoughtful 
assistance  in  the  preparation  of  the  volume  for  the 
printer. 

R.  W.  B. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION  page     xi 

I.  PRELIMINARIES 

Truth  of  Intercourse  Robert  Louis  Stevenson         3 

On  the  Difference  Between  Writing 

and  Speaking  William  Hazlitl       14 

II.  PRINCIPLES  OF  GROWTH 

Principles  of  Growth         Sidney  Thompson  Dobell  23 
The  Principles  of  Success  in 

Literature  (II  and  IV)         George  Henry  Lewes  34 
The  Cardinal  Rules  of  Rhetoric 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  77 
The  Principle  of  Economy  Applied 

to  Words                                       Herbert  Spencer  90 

Words  that  Laugh  and  Cry      The  New  York  Sun  m 

The  Philosophy  of  Composition    Edgar  Allan  Poe  114 

Marginalia                                        Edgar  Allan  Poe  130 

Judgments  of  Authors                             George  Eliot  138 

Simplicity  in  Art                                   Frank  Norrii  141 

Language  and  the  Man                         John  Ruskin  147 
The  Morality  of  the  Profession  of  Letters 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  1 50 

Advice  to  a  Young  Reviewer       Edward  Copies  ton  164. 


x  CONTENTS 

III.  FICTIONAL  NARRATIVE  page 
What   Everyone   Knows   about   Expression   and 

Something  Which  All   the  World   Does  Not 

Know  Denis  Diderot  187 

The  Novel  Guy  de  Maupassant  193 

The  Art  of  Fiction  Henry  James  210 

A  Humble  Remonstrance    Robert  Louis  Stevenson  lyi 

Story-Telling  George  Eliot  247 

The  Aim  of  Fictional  Art  Joseph  Conrad  251 

A  Problem  in  Fiction  Frank  Norris  258 

De  Finibus  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  263 

IV.  THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE 

Discourse  on  Style 

Georges-Louis  Leclerc  de  Buff  on  277 

The  Sinews  of  Style  Henry  David  Thoreau  288 

Style  as  Organic  and  as  Mechanic 

Thomas  De  ^jiincey  295 
On  Style                                    Arthur  Schopenhauer  ,  302 

On  Familiar  Style  William  Hazlitt  323 

On  Style  Arthur  ShiUler-Couch  233 

INDEX  349 


INTRODUCTION 

Two  convictions  have  prompted  the  preparation  of 
this  volume.  The  first  of  these  is  that  beyond  the 
usual  college  instruction  in  certain  fundamentals  of 
composition,  writing  cannot  profitably  be  taught  by 
prescribed  formula  - —  as  though  literary  excellence 
resulted  from  the  magic  of  some  complete  and 
closed  system  of  philosophy.  The  second  is  that  in 
matters  of  literary  workmanship  writers  them- 
selves ought  to  prove  stimulating  counsellors. 

The  first  of  these  convictions  does  not  disregard 
the  importance  of  college  courses  or  of  books  on  the 
mechanics  of  writing,  on  the  "forms"  of  composi- 
tion, or  on  certain  rather  definitely  restricted  fields, 
such  as  that  of  the  short  story  or  the  personal  essay. 
But  it  does  regard  all  such  instruction  as  falling 
short  of  its  professed  aim  unless  it  is  supplemented 
by  the  liberalizing  observations  or  suggestions  of 
some  one  whose  vision  has  not  been  narrowed  by  the 
necessities  of  a  special  pedagogical  problem. 

To-day  one  of  the  serious  dangers  in  the  teaching 
of  composition  is  the  made-to-order  recipe  for  lit- 
erary genius.  The  teacher  is  called  upon  to  name 
every  ingredient;  to  indicate  every  proportion;  and, 
worst  of  all,  to  classify  in  a  system  of  air-tight  re- 
ceptacles every  "legitimate"  variety  of  spices.  The 
course  must  be  scrupulously  complete  —  so  com- 
plete that  a  student  who  has  taken  it  runs  serious 
risk  of  feeling  that  it  would  be  useless  or  foolish  or 
even  dangerous  for  him  either  to  investigate  the 
literary  recipe  of  any  one  else  or  to  do  any  experi- 
menting on  his  own  initiative. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

The  specialized  course  must  undoubtedly  con- 
tinue to  form  the  nucleus  of  advanced  instruction  in 
composition.  But  it  seems  reasonable  to  believe 
that  such  a  course  should  be  the  beginning  and  not 
the  end  of  instruction;  that  if  we  are  to  have  groups 
of  young  writers  who  shall  contribute  anything  to 
American  letters,  they  must  receive  in  addition  to 
basic  instruction  a  variety  of  quickening  suggestion, 
in  order  that  they  may  always  be  open-minded  and 
imbued  with  an  undying  intellectual  curiosity. 
They  should  never  cease  to  be  inquirers  after  the 
way  and  the  nature  of  truth;  and  in  their  search 
they  should  not  be  prejudiced  against  any  method 
or  any  aim  simply  because  it  is  new  or  because  it  is 
old.  And  if  among  them  appears  a  brilliant  genius 
who  finds  it  impossible  to  make  his  work  conform  to 
the  usual  categories,  yet  who  has  something  to  say 
that  would  increase  the  world's  delight  and  its  sense 
of  social  kinship,  he  should  be  encouraged  to  go  his 
own  way,  even  if  he  passed  wholly  beyond  the  pre- 
scriptions of  any  given  course.  Somewhere  in  the 
study  of  their  subject,  students  of  writing  must  come 
into  possession  of  two  essential  working-ideas:  they 
must  feel  that  creative  labor  is  not  unalterably  re- 
stricted either  in  the  direction  it  may  take  or  in  the 
nature  of  the  ends  it  may  attain;  and  they  must  see 
that  in  literary  art,  as  in  other  creative  employ- 
ments, very  little  can  really  be  taught,  but  very 
much  can  be  learned. 

Concerning  the  usefulness  of  writers  as  counsel- 
lors, it  has  customarily  been  said  that  men  and 
women  who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  the  writing 
of  novels  and  essays  and  poetry  have  not  gone  to  the 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

trouble  of  discussing  their  own  art.  Some  critics, 
with  a  sense  of  humor  that  leads  them  to  sacrifice  a 
large  body  of  truth  for  a  choice  morsel  of  irony,  have 
observed  that  writers  have  left  the  teaching  of  com- 
position to  college  professors  who  cannot  write. 
They  usually  "prove"  their  case  by  quoting  an 
ungrammatical  sentence  or  two  from  the  public 
utterance  of  some  teacher,  and  by  pointing  out 
the  supposed  fact  that  Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  the 
only  writer  who  ever  said  much  about  his  methods 
of  working,  and  that  he  probably  did  not  tell  the 
truth.  Now  it  is  unimportant  that  one  should  here 
discuss  the  considerable  amount  of  creative  writing 
done  each  year  by  teachers;  but  it  is  extremely  im- 
portant that  we  should  bear  in  mind  the  great  free- 
dom with  which  creative  writers  have  discussed  the 
writer's  problems.  The  very  men  and  women  who 
have  enriched  our  lives  with  novels  and  essays  and 
poems  have  been  conscious  of  the  learner's  difficul- 
ties, and  have  written  about  them  —  from  the  most 
baffling  problem  of  artistic  structure  down  to  the 
humblest  question  of  punctuation. 

Nevertheless,  it  must  be  admitted  that  we  have 
not  made  use  of  "expert  counsel"  in  the  teaching  of 
English  as  has  been  done  in  the  teaching  of  other 
kinds  of  constructive  or  artistic  work.  The  engineer 
devotes  some  part  of  his  time  to  the  promotion  of 
engineering  education;  the  architect  contributes  to 
the  study  of  architecture  either  through  lectures  or 
through  writing;  the  musician  —  the  composer  as 
well  as  the  performer  —  is  almost  certain  to  have  a 
few  pupils;  and  the  sculptor  or  painter  who  does  not 
teach,  or  who  has  not  taught  at  some  time  in  his  life, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

is  rare  indeed.  Compared  with  workers  in  these 
fields,  the  literary  craftsman  contributes  very  little 
directly  to  the  promotion  of  his  art. 

For  this  discrepancy,  institutions  of  learning  are 
chiefly  to  blame.  Very  few  colleges  or  universities 
encourage  teachers  to  improve  their  teaching  by 
becoming  creative  writers.  Nor  do  they  encourage 
writers  —  good  writers  —  to  give  a  small  part  of 
their  time  to  teaching.  Authors,  many  administra- 
tors of  education  inform  us,  are  not  competent  to 
teach.  To  begin  with,  they  have  an  "  artistic  tem- 
perament"; they  are  likely  to  be  "unpractical"  and 
visionary;  and  they  are  wholly  without  formal 
training  in  pedagogy.  Granted  that  all  of  these 
objections  are  sound,  does  it  not  remain  true  that  the 
writer  as  a  teacher  would  have  a  powerful  influence 
for  better  literary  art  ?  What  student  would  not  be 
quickened  if  in  his  college  career  he  could  have  just 
one  theme  read  and  marked  by  Hazlitt  or  Thackeray 
or  R.  L.  S.  ?  Who  would  not  work  a  little  harder 
and  a  little  longer  because  he  had  once  taken  a 
course  in  composition  under  Flaubert  or  Ruskin  or 
Joseph  Conrad  ?  Would  it  really  matter  very  much 
whether  the  teacher  in  this  case  had  had  an  "  artistic 
temperament"  or  not,  or  whether  his  course  was 
organized  according  to  the  recommendations  of  the 
latest  efficiency  expert  ?  Such  a  privilege,  granted 
to  the  young  engineer,  the  young  composer  or  per- 
former, the  young  sculptor,  and  the  young  painter, 
yet  denied  almost  wholly  to  the  young  writer,  would 
be  welcomed  by  every  serious  student  of  composi- 
tion. And  it  would  be  welcomed  just  as  heartily  by 
the  "full-time"  teacher  who  can  give  only  an  oc- 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

casional  hour  to  writing.  The  obstacle  to  fulfillment 
lies  in  the  fact  that  institutions  of  learning  have  not 
recognized  the  importance  of  the  need. 

As  a  small  fund  of  available  material  contributed 
to  the  world  by  writers  themselves,  this  volume  is 
submitted  to  teachers  and  students  of  composition. 
It  is  not  a  source-book  of  historical  information  on 
style  or  criticism  —  excellent  books  of  that  kind 
have  already  been  compiled  by  Professor  Saintsbury, 
Professor  Lane  Cooper,  and  Professor  W.  T.  Brew- 
ster —  but  a  selected  group  of  essays  that  students 
in  one  college  and  two  universities  have  found  help- 
ful in  their  efforts  to  learn  to  write.  Editorial  foot- 
notes have  been  rigorously  compressed  or  excluded; 
no  effort  has  been  made  to  supply  information  for 
the  student  who  is  too  indifferent  to  turn  the  pages 
of  a  lexicon  or  a  biographical  dictionary.  The  editor 
has  sought  to  give  only  such  information  as  would 
enable  the  serious  student  to  read  intelligently  were 
he  to  come  upon  one  of  the  essays  in  the  magazine 
or  the  book  in  which  it  first  appeared.  The  author's 
view,  unclouded  by  any  critical  thesis  or  extended 
commentary  of  an  editor,  has  been  regarded  as  the 
matter  of  importance. 


I.  PRELIMINARIES 


TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE1 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

i 850-1 894 

"Truth  of  Intercourse"  appeared  originally  in  The  Cornhill 
Magazine,  May,  1879.  In  1881  it  was  included  in  Virginibus 
Puerisque  as  the  fourth  essay  in  that  volume. 

Stevenson's  reflections  on  the  art  of  writing  are  important, 
not  only  because  of  his  wide  experience  in  the  field  of  letters, 
but  also  because  he  has  told  us  that  in  his  efforts  to  perfect  his 
craft  he  struggled  laboriously.  See,  for  example,  his  essay  en- 
titled "A  College  Magazine." 

AMONG  sayings  that  have  a  currency  in  spite  of 
being  wholly  false  upon  the  face  of  them  for  the 
sake  of  a  half-truth  upon  another  subject  which  is  acci- 
dentally combined  with  the  error,  one  of  the  grossest 
and  broadest  conveys  the  monstrous  proposition  that  it 
is  easy  to  tell  the  truth  and  hard  to  tell  a  lie.  I  wish 
heartily  it  were.  But  the  truth  is  one;  it  has  first  to  be 
discovered,  then  justly  and  exactly  uttered.  Even  with 
instruments  specially  contrived  for  such  a  purpose  — 
with  a  foot  rule,  a  level,  or  a  theodolite  —  it  is  not  easy 
to  be  exact;  it  is  easier,  alas!  to  be  inexact.  From  those 
who  mark  the  divisions  on  a  scale  to  those  who  measure 
the  boundaries  of  empires  or  the  distance  of  the  heavenly 
stars,  it  is  by  careful  method  and  minute,  unwearying 
attention  that  men  rise  even  to  material  exactness  or  to 
sure  knowledge  even  of  external  and  constant  things. 
But  it  is  easier  to  draw  the  outline  of  a  mountain  than 
the  changing  appearance  of  a  face;  and  truth  in  human 

1  Copyright  by  Chatto  and  Windus,  London,  England.  Re- 
printed by  permission. 


4  TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

relations  is  of  this  more  intangible  and  dubious  order: 
hard  to  seize,  harder  to  communicate.  Veracity  to  facts 
in  a  loose,  colloquial  sense  —  not  to  say  that  I  have  been 
in  Malabar  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  was  never  out  of 
England,  not  to  say  that  I  have  read  Cervantes  in  the 
original  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  know  not  one  syllable 
of  Spanish  —  this,  indeed,  is  easy  and  to  the  same  degree 
unimportant  in  itself.  Lies  of  this  sort,  according  to 
circumstances,  may  or  may  not  be  important;  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  even  they  may  or  may  not  be  false.  The 
habitual  liar  may  be  a  very  honest  fellow,  and  live  truly 
with  his  wife  and  friends;  while  another  man  who  never 
told  a  formal  falsehood  in  his  life  may  yet  be  himself  one 
lie  —  heart  and  face,  from  top  to  bottom.  This  is  the 
kind  of  lie  which  poisons  intimacy.  And,  vice  versa, 
veracity  to  sentiment,  truth  in  a  relation,  truth  to  your 
own  heart  and  your  friends,  never  to  feign  or  falsify 
emotion  —  that  is  the  truth  which  makes  love  possible 
and  mankind  happy. 

Hart  de  bien  dire  is  but  a  drawing-room  accomplish- 
ment unless  it  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  truth. 
The  difficulty  of  literature  is  not  to  write,  but  to  write 
what  you  mean;  not  to  affect  your  reader,  but  to  affect 
him  precisely  as  you  wish.  This  is  commonly  under- 
stood in  the  case  of  books  or  set  orations;  even  in  making 
your  will,  or  writing  an  explicit  letter,  some  difficulty  is 
admitted  by  the  world.  But  one  thing  you  can  never 
make  Philistine  natures  understand;  one  thing,  which 
yet  lies  on  the  surface,  remains  as  unseizable  to  their 
wits  as  a  high  flight  of  metaphysics  —  namely,  that  the 
business  of  life  is  mainly  carried  on  by  means  of  this 
difficult  art  of  literature,  and  according  to  a  man's  pro- 
ficiency in  that  art  shall  be  the  freedom  and  the  fulness 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  5 

of  his  intercourse  with  other  men.  Anybody,  it  is  sup- 
posed, can  say  what  he  means;  and,  in  spite  of  their 
notorious  experience  to  the  contrary,  people  so  continue 
to  suppose.  Now,  I  simply  open  the  last  book  I  have 
been  reading  —  Mr.  Leland's  captivating  English 
Gipsies.  "  It  is  said,"  I  find  on  p.  7,  "  that  those  who  can 
converse  with  Irish  peasants  in  their  own  native  tongue 
form  far  higher  opinions  of  their  appreciation  of  the 
beautiful,  and  of  the  elements  of  humour  and  pathos  in 
their  hearts,  than  do  those  who  know  their  thoughts  only 
through  the  medium  of  English.  I  know  from  my  own 
observations  that  this  is  quite  the  case  with  the  Indians 
of  North  America,  and  it  is  unquestionably  so  with  the 
gipsy."  In  short,  where  a  man  has  not  a  full  possession 
of  the  language,  the  most  important,  because  the  most 
amiable,  qualities  of  his  nature  have  to  lie  buried  and 
fallow;  for  the  pleasure  of  comradeship,  and  the  intel- 
lectual part  of  love,  rest  upon  these  very  "elements  of 
humour  and  pathos."  Here  is  a  man  opulent  in  both, 
and  for  lack  of  a  medium  he  can  put  none  of  it  out  to 
interest  in  the  market  of  affection!  But  what  is  thus 
made  plain  to  our  apprehensions  in  the  case  of  a  foreign 
language  is  partially  true  even  with  the  tongue  we 
learned  in  childhood.  Indeed,  we  all  speak  different 
dialects;  one  shall  be  copious  and  exact,  another  loose 
and  meagre;  but  the  speech  of  the  ideal  talker  shall  cor- 
respond and  fit  upon  the  truth  of  fact  —  not  clumsily, 
obscuring  lineaments,  like  a  mantle,  but  cleanly  adher- 
ing, like  an  athlete's  skin.  And  what  is  the  result  ?  That 
the  one  can  open  himself  more  clearly  to  his  friends,  and 
can  enjoy  more  of  what  makes  life  truly  valuable  — 
intimacy  with  those  he  loves.  An  orator  makes  a  false 
step;  he  employs  some  trivial,  some  absurd,  some  vulgar 


6  TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

phrase;  in  the  turn  of  a  sentence  he  insults,  by  a  side 
wind,  those  whom  he  is  labouring  to  charm;  in  speaking 
to  one  sentiment  he  unconsciously  ruffles  another  in 
parenthesis;  and  you  are  not  surprised,  for  you  know  his 
task  to  be  delicate  and  filled  with  perils.  "O  frivolous 
mind  of  man,  light  ignorance!  "  As  if  yourself,  when 
you  seek  to  explain  some  misunderstanding  or  excuse 
some  apparent  fault,  speaking  swiftly  and  addressing  a 
mind  still  recently  incensed,  were  not  harnessing  for  a 
more  perilous  adventure;  as  if  yourself  required  less  tact 
and  eloquence;  as  if  an  angry  friend  or  a  suspicious  lover 
were  not  more  easy  to  offend  than  a  meeting  of  indif- 
ferent politicians!  Nay,  and  the  orator  treads  in  a 
beaten  round;  the  matters  he  discusses  have  been  dis- 
cussed a  thousand  times  before;  language  is  ready- 
shaped  to  his  purpose;  he  speaks  out  of  a  cut  and  dry 
vocabulary.  But  you  —  may  it  not  be  that  your  de- 
fence reposes  on  some  subtlety  of  feeling,  not  so  much  as 
touched  upon  in  Shakespeare,  to  express  which,  like  a 
pioneer,  you  must  venture  forth  into  zones  of  thought 
still  unsurveyed,  and  become  yourself  a  literary  innova- 
tor ?  For  even  in  love  there  are  unlovely  humours; 
ambiguous  acts,  unpardonable  words,  may  yet  have 
sprung  from  a  kind  sentiment.  If  the  injured  one  could 
read  your  heart,  you  may  be  sure  that  he  would  under- 
stand and  pardon;  but,  alas!  the  heart  cannot  be  shown 
—  it  has  to  be  demonstrated  in  words.  Do  you  think  it 
is  a  hard  thing  to  write  poetry  ?  Why,  that  is  to  write 
poetry,  and  of  a  high,  if  not  the  highest,  order. 

I  should  even  more  admire  "the  lifelong  and  heroic 
literary  labours"  of  my  fellow-men,  patiently  clearing 
up  in  words  their  loves  and  their  contentions,  and  speak- 
ing their  autobiography  daily  to  their  wives,  were  it  not 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  7 

for  a  circumstance  which  lessens  their  difficulty  and  my 
admiration  by  equal  parts.  For  life,  though  largely,  is 
not  entirely  carried  on  by  literature.  We  are  subject  to 
physical  passions  and  contortions;  the  voice  breaks  and 
changes,  and  speaks  by  unconscious  and  winning  inflec- 
tions, we  have  legible  countenances,  like  an  open  book; 
things  that  cannot  be  said  look  eloquently  through  the 
eyes;  and  the  soul,  not  locked  into  the  body  as  a  dun- 
geon, dwells  ever  on  the  threshold  with  appealing  sig- 
nals. Groans  and  tears,  looks  and  gestures,  a  flush  or  a 
paleness,  are  often  the  most  clear  reporters  of  the  heart, 
and  speak  more  directly  to  the  hearts  of  others.  The 
message  flies  by  these  interpreters  in  the  least  space  of 
time,  and  the  misunderstanding  is  averted  in  the  mo- 
ment of  its  birth.  To  explain  in  words  takes  time  and  a 
just  and  patient  hearing;  and  in  the  critical  epochs  of  a 
close  relation,  patience  and  justice  are  not  qualities  on 
which  we  can  rely.  But  the  look  or  the  gesture  explains 
things  in  a  breath:  they  tell  their  message  without  am- 
biguity; unlike  speech,  they  cannot  stumble,  by  the  way, 
on  a  reproach  or  an  illusion  that  should  steel  your  friend 
against  the  truth;  and  then  they  have  a  higher  au- 
thority, for  they  are  the  direct  expression  of  the  heart, 
not  yet  transmitted  through  the  unfaithful  and  so- 
phisticating brain.  Not  long  ago  I  wrote  a  letter  to  a 
friend  which  came  near  involving  us  in  quarrel;  but  we 
met,  and  in  personal  talk  I  repeated  the  worst  of  what 
I  had  written,  and  added  worse  to  that;  and  with  the 
commentary  of  the  body  it  seemed  not  unfriendly 
either  to  hear  or  say.  Indeed,  letters  are  in  vain  for 
the  purposes  of  intimacy;  an  absence  is  a  dead  break  in 
the  relation:  yet  two  who  know  each  other  fully  and  are 
bent  on  perpetuity  in  love,  may  so  preserve  the  attitude 


8  TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

of  their  affections  that  they  may  meet  on  the  same 
terms  as  they  had  parted. 

Pitiful  is  the  case  of  the  blind,  who  cannot  read  the 
face;  pitiful  that  of  the  deaf,  who  cannot  follow  the 
changes  of  the  voice.  And  there  are  others  also  to  be 
pitied;  for  there  are  some  of  an  inert,  uneloquent  nature, 
who  have  been  denied  all  the  symbols  of  communica- 
tion, who  have  neither  a  lively  play  of  facial  expression, 
nor  speaking  gestures,  nor  a  responsive  voice,  nor  yet 
the  gift  of  frank,  explanatory  speech:  people  truly  made 
of  clay,  peopled  tied  for  life  into  a  bag  which  no  one  can 
undo.  They  are  poorer  than  the  gipsy,  for  their  heart 
can  speak  no  language  under  heaven.  Such  people  we 
must  learn  slowly  by  the  tenor  of  their  acts,  or  through 
yea  and  nay  communications;  or  we  take  them  on  trust 
on  the  strength  of  a  general  air,  and  now  and  again, 
when  we  see  the  spirit  breaking  through  in  a  flash,  cor- 
rect or  change  our  estimate.  But  these  will  be  uphill 
intimacies,  without  charm  or  freedom,  to  the  end:  and 
freedom  is  the  chief  ingredient  in  confidence.  Some 
minds,  romantically  dull,  despise  physical  endowments. 
That  is  a  doctrine  for  a  misanthrope;  to  those  who  like 
their  fellow-creatures  it  must  always  be  meaningless; 
and,  for  my  part,  I  can  see  few  things  more  desirable, 
after  the  possession  of  such  radical  qualities  as  honour 
and  humour  and  pathos,  than  to  have  a  lively  and  not  a 
stolid  countenance;  to  have  looks  to  correspond  with 
every  feeling;  to  be  elegant  and  delightful  in  person,  so 
that  we  shall  please  even  in  the  intervals  of  active 
pleasing,  and  may  never  discredit  speech  with  uncouth 
manners  or  become  unconsciously  our  own  burlesques. 
But  of  all  unfortunates  there  is  one  creature  (for  I  will 
not  call  him  man)  conspicuous  in  misfortune.  This  is  he 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  9 

who  has  forfeited  his  birthright  of  expression,  who  has 
cultivated  artful  intonations,  who  has  taught  his  face 
tricks,  like  a  pet  monkey,  and  on  every  side  perverted  or 
cut  off  his  means  of  communication  with  his  fellow- 
men.  The  body  is  a  house  of  many  windows:  there  we  all 
sit,  showing  ourselves  and  crying  on  the  passers-by  to 
come  and  love  us.  But  this  fellow  has  filled  his  win- 
dows with  opaque  glass,  elegantly  coloured.  His  house 
may  be  admired  for  its  design,  the  crowd  may  pause 
before  the  stained  windows,  but  meanwhile  the  poor 
proprietor  must  lie  languishing  within,  uncomforted, 
unchangeably  alone. 

Truth  of  intercourse  is  something  more  difficult  than 
to  refrain  from  open  lies.  It  is  possible  to  avoid  false- 
hood and  yet  not  tell  the  truth.  It  is  not  enough  to  an- 
swer formal  questions.  To  reach  the  truth  by  yea  and 
nay  communications  implies  a  questioner  with  a  share 
of  inspiration,  such  as  is  often  found  in  mutual  love. 
Yea  and  nay  mean  nothing;  the  meaning  must  have 
been  related  in  the  question.  Many  words  are  often 
necessary  to  convey  a  very  simple  statement;  for  in  this 
sort  of  exercise  we  never  hit  the  gold;  the  most  that  we 
can  hope  is  by  many  arrows,  more  or  less  far  off  on  dif- 
ferent sides,  to  indicate,  in  the  course  of  time,  for  what 
target  we  are  aiming,  and  after  an  hour's  talk,  back  and 
forward,  to  convey  the  purport  of  a  single  principle  or  a 
single  thought.  And  yet  while  the  curt,  pithy  speaker 
misses  the  point  entirely,  a  wordy,  prolegomenous 
babbler  will  often  add  three  new  offences  in  the  process 
of  excusing  one.  It  is  really  a  most  delicate  affair.  The 
world  was  made  before  the  English  language,  and 
seemingly  upon  a  different  design.  Suppose  we  held  our 
converse  not  in  words,  but  in  music;  those  who  have  a 


io  TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

bad  ear  would  find  themselves  cut  off  from  all  near  com- 
merce, and  no  better  than  foreigners  in  this  big  world. 
But  we  do  not  consider  how  many  have  "a  bad  ear"  for 
words,  nor  how  often  the  most  eloquent  find  nothing  to 
reply.  I  hate  questioners  and  questions;  there  are  so 
few  that  can  be  spoken  to  without  a  lie.  "  Do  you  forgive 
me  ?  "  Madam  and  sweetheart,  so  far  as  I  have  gone  in 
life  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  discover  what  forgive- 
ness means.  "Is  it  still  the  same  between  us  ?  "  Why, 
how  can  it  be  ?  It  is  eternally  different;  and  yet  you  are 
still  the  friend  of  my  heart.  "Do  you  understand  me  ?  " 
God  knows;  I  should  think  it  highly  improbable. 

The  cruellest  lies  are  often  told  in  silence.  A  man  may 
have  sat  in  a  room  for  hours  and  not  opened  his  teeth, 
and  yet  come  out  of  that  room  a  disloyal  friend  or  a  vile 
calumniator.  And  how  many  loves  have  perished  be- 
cause, from  pride,  or  spite,  or  diffidence,  or  that  un- 
manly shame  which  withholds  a  man  from  daring  to 
betray  emotion,  a  lover,  at  the  critical  point  of  the  re- 
lation, has  but  hung  his  head  and  held  his  tongue  ? 
And,  again,  a  lie  may  be  told  by  a  truth,  or  a  truth  con- 
veyed through  a  lie.  Truth  to  facts  is  not  always  truth 
to  sentiment;  and  part  of  the  truth,  as  often  happens  in 
answer  to  a  question,  may  be  the  foulest  calumny.  A 
fact  may  be  an  exception;  but  the  feeling  is  the  law,  and 
it  is  that  which  you  must  neither  garble  nor  belie.  The 
whole  tenor  of  a  conversation  is  a  part  of  the  meaning  of 
each  separate  statement;  the  beginning  and  the  end  de- 
fine and  travesty  the  intermediate  conversation.  You 
never  speak  to  God;  you  address  a  fellow-man,  full  of 
his  own  tempers;  and  to  tell  truth,  rightly  understood,  is 
not  to  state  the  true  facts,  but  to  convey  a  true  impres- 
sion; truth  in  spirit,  not  truth  to  letter,  is  the  true 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  n 

veracity.  To  reconcile  averted  friends  a  Jesuitical  dis- 
cretion is  often  needful,  not  so  much  to  gain  a  kind  hear- 
ing as  to  communicate  sober  truth.  Women  have  an  ill 
name  in  this  connection;  yet  they  live  in  as  true  rela- 
tions; the  lie  of  a  good  woman  is  the  true  index  of  her 
heart. 

"It  takes,"  says  Thoreau,  in  the  noblest  and  most 
useful  passage  I  remember  to  have  read  in  any  modern 
author,1  "two  to  speak  truth  —  one  to  speak  and  an- 
other to  hear."  He  must  be  very  little  experienced,  or 
have  no  great  zeal  for  truth,  who  dees  not  recognise  the 
fact.  A  grain  of  anger  or  a  grain  of  suspicion  produces 
strange  acoustical  effects,  and  makes  the  ear  greedy  to 
remark  offence.  Hence  we  find  those  who  have  once 
quarrelled  carry  themselves  distantly,  and  are  ever 
ready  to  break  the  truce.  To  speak  truth  there  must  be 
moral  equality  or  else  no  respect;  and  hence  between 
parent  and  child  intercourse  is  apt  to  degenerate  into  a 
verbal  fencing  bout,  and  misapprehensions  to  become 
ingrained.  And  there  is  another  side  to  this,  for  the 
parent  begins  with  an  imperfect  notion  of  the  child's 
character,  formed  in  early  years  or  during  the  equinoc- 
tial gales  of  youth;  to  this  he  adheres,  noting  only  the 
facts  which  suit  with  his  preconception;  and  wherever 
a  person  fancies  himself  unjustly  judged,  he  at  once  and 
finally  gives  up  the  effort  to  speak  truth.  With  our 
chosen  friends,  on  the  other  hand,  and  still  more  be- 
tween lovers  (for  mutual  understanding  is  love's  es- 
sence), the  truth  is  easily  indicated  by  the  one  and  aptly 
comprehended  by  the  other.  A  hint  taken,  a  look  un- 
derstood, conveys  the  gist  of  long  and  delicate  explana- 

1  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  Wednesday; 
p.  283. 


12  TRUTH  OF  INTERCOURSE 

tions;  and  where  the  life  is  known  even  yea  and  nay 
become  luminous.  In  the  closest  of  all  relations  —  that 
of  a  love  well  founded  and  equally  shared  —  speech  is 
half  discarded,  like  a  roundabout,  infantile  process  or  a 
ceremony  of  formal  etiquette;  and  the  two  communi- 
cate directly  by  their  presences,  and  with  few  looks  and 
fewer  words  contrive  to  share  their  good  and  evil  and 
uphold  each  other's  hearts  in  joy.  For  love  rests  upon  a 
physical  basis;  it  is  a  familiarity  of  nature's  making  and 
apart  from  voluntary  choice.  Understanding  has  in 
some  sort  outrun  knowledge,  for  the  affection  perhaps 
began  with  the  acquaintance;  and  as  it  was  not  made 
like  other  relations,  so  it  is  not,  like  them,  to  be  per- 
turbed or  clouded.  Each  knows  more  than  can  be 
uttered;  each  lives  by  faith,  and  believes  by  a  natural 
compulsion;  and  between  man  and  wife  the  language  of 
the  body  is  largely  developed  and  grown  strangely  elo- 
quent. The  thought  that  prompted  and  was  conveyed 
in  a  caress  would  only  lose  to  be  set  down  in  words  — 
ay,  although  Shakespeare  himself  should  be  the  scribe. 

Yet  it  is  in  these  dear  intimacies,  beyond  all  others, 
that  we  must  strive  and  do  battle  for  the  truth.  Let 
but  a  doubt  arise,  and  alas!  all  the  previous  intimacy 
and  confidence  is  but  another  charge  against  the  person 
doubted.  "What  a  monstrous  dishonesty  is  this  if  I  have 
been  deceived  so  long  and  so  completely!  "  Let  but  that 
thought  gain  entrance,  and  you  plead  before  a  deaf 
tribunal.  Appeal  to  the  past;  why,  that  is  your  crime! 
Make  all  clear,  convince  the  reason;  alas!  speciousness  is 
but  a  proof  against  you.  "  If you  can  abuse  me  now,  the 
more  likely  that  you  have  abused  me  from  the  first." 

For  a  strong  affection  such  moments  are  worth  sup- 
porting, and  they  will  end  well;  for  your  advocate  is  in 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  13 

your  lover's  heart,  and  speaks  her  own  language;  it  is 
not  you  but  she  herself  who  can  defend  and  clear  you  of 
the  charge.  But  in  slighter  intimacies,  and  for  a  less 
stringent  union?  Indeed,  is  it  worth  while?  We  are  all 
incompris,  only  more  or  less  concerned  for  the  mis- 
chance; all  trying  wrongly  to  do  right;  all  fawning  at 
each  other's  feet  like  dumb,  neglected  lap-dogs.  Some- 
times we  catch  an  eye  —  this  is  our  opportunity  in  the 
ages  —  and  we  wag  our  tail  with  a  poor  smile.  "Is  that 
all?"  All?  If  you  only  knew!  But  how  can  they 
know?  They  do  not  love  us;  the  more  fools  we  to 
squander  life  on  the  indifferent. 

But  the  morality  of  the  thing,  you  will  be  glad  to 
hear,  is  excellent;  for  it  is  only  by  trying  to  understand 
others  that  we  can  get  our  own  hearts  understood;  and 
in  matters  of  human  feeling  the  clement  judge  is  the 
most  successful  pleader. 


ON  THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN 
WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

1778-1830 

In  The  Collected  Works  of  William  Hazlitt,  edited  by  Waller 
and  Glover  (J.  M.  Dent  and  Company,  1903),  the  following 
bibliographical  note  appears  concerning  the  volume  from 
which  "On  the  Difference  Between  Writing  and  Speaking"  is 
taken:  "  The  Plain  Speaker:  Opinions  on  Books,  Men,  and 
Things,  appeared  anonymously  in  1826  in  two  volumes  (9X 
55  inches),  published  by  Henry  Colburn,  New  Burlington 
Street,"  etc.,  etc. 

Until  recently  students  of  composition  have  had  little  op- 
portunity to  become  acquainted  with  Hazlitt;  but  thanks  to 
the  appearance  of  several  collections  of  essays  from  his  works, 
it  is  now  possible  to  have  on  one's  book-shelves  some  of  the 
best  essays  that  he  has  written.  Anyone  who  wishes  to  be- 
come an  effective  writer  can  afford  to  spend  frequent  hours  in 
the  buoyant  atmosphere  of  Hazlitt's  pages.  His  work  is  all  the 
more  interesting  because  of  the  long  struggle  that  he  himself 
made  to  attain  adequate  expression.  "If  such  is  still  my  ad- 
miration for  this  man's  [Burke's]  misapplied  powers,  what 
must  it  have  been  when  I  myself  was  in  vain  trying,  year  after 
year,  to  write  a  single  essay,  nay,  a  single  page  or  sentence; 
when  I  regarded  the  wonders  of  his  pen  with  the  longing  eyes 
of  one  who  was  dumb  and  a  changeling;  and  when  to  convey 
the  slightest  conception  of  my  meaning  to  others  in  words  was 
the  height  of  an  almost  hopeless  ambition." 

"Some  minds  are  proportioned  to  that  which  may  be  dis- 
patched at  once,  or  within  a  short  return  of  time:  others  to 
that  which  begins  afar  off,  and  is  to  be  won  with  length  of 
pursuit."  —  Bacon. 

IT  is  a  common  observation,  that  few  persons  can 
be  found  who  speak  and  write  equally  well.    Not  only 
is  it  obvious  that  the  two  faculties  do  not  always  go  to- 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  15 

gether  in  the  same  proportions:  but  they  are  not  unusu- 
ally in  direct  opposition  to  each  other.  We  find  that  the 
greatest  authors  often  make  the  worst  company  in  the 
world;  and  again,  some  of  the  liveliest  fellows  imaginable 
in  conversation  or  extempore  speaking,  seem  to  lose  all 
their  vivacity  and  spirit  the  moment  they  set  pen  to 
paper.  For  this  a  greater  degree  of  quickness  or  slow- 
ness of  parts,  education,  habit,  temper,  turn  of  mind, 
and  a  variety  of  collateral  and  predisposing  causes  are 
necessary  to  account.  The  subject  is  at  least  curious, 
and  worthy  of  an  attempt  to  explain  it.  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  illustrate  the  difference  by  familiar  ex- 
amples rather  than  by  analytical  reasonings.  The 
philosopher  of  old  was  not  unwise  who  defined  motion 
by  getting  up  and  walking. 

The  great  leading  distinction  between  writing  and 
speaking  is,  that  more  time  is  allowed  for  the  one  than 
the  other;  and  hence  different  faculties  are  required  for, 
and  different  objects  attained  by,  each.  He  is  properly 
the  best  speaker  who  can  collect  together  the  greatest 
number  of  opposite  ideas  at  a  moment's  warning:  he  is 
properly  the  best  writer  who  can  give  utterance  to  the 
greatest  quantity  of  valuable  knowledge  in  the  course  of 
his  whole  life.  The  chief  requisite  for  the  one,  then,  ap- 
pears to  be  quickness  and  facility  of  perception  —  for 
the  other,  patience  of  soul,  and  a  power  increasing  with 
the  difficulties  it  has  to  master.  He  cannot  be  denied  to 
be  an  expert  speaker,  a  lively  companion,  who  is  never 
at  a  loss  for  something  to  say  on  every  occasion  or  sub- 
ject that  offers:  he,  by  the  same  rule,  will  make  a  re- 
spectable writer,  who,  by  dint  of  study,  can  find  out 
anything  good  to  say  upon  any  one  point  that  has  not 
been  touched  upon  before,  or  who  by  asking  for  time, 


1 6  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

can  give  the  most  complete  and  comprehensive  view  of 
any  question.  The  one  must  be  done  off-hand,  at  a 
single  blow:  the  other  can  only  be  done  by  a  repetition 
of  blows,  by  having  time  to  think  and  do  better.  In 
speaking,  less  is  required  of  you,  if  you  only  do  it  at 
once  with  grace  and  spirit:  in  writing,  you  stipulate  for 
all  that  you  are  capable  of,  but  you  have  the  choice  of 
your  own  time  and  subject.  You  do  not  expect  from  the 
manufacturer  the  same  despatch  in  executing  an  order 
that  you  do  from  a  shopman  or  warehouseman.  The 
difference  of  quicker  and  slower ,  however,  is  not  all: 
that  is  merely  a  difference  of  comparison  in  doing  the 
same  thing.  But  the  writer  and  speaker  have  to  do 
things  essentially  different.  Besides  habit,  and  greater 
or  less  facility,  there  is  also  a  certain  reach  of  capacity, 
a  certain  depth  or  shallowness,  grossness  or  refinement 
of  intellect,  which  marks  out  the  distinction  between 
those  whose  chief  ambition  is  to  shine  by  producing  an 
immediate  effect,  or  who  are  thrown  back,  by  a  natural 
bias,  on  the  severer  researches  of  thought  and  study. 

We  see  persons  of  that  standard  or  texture  of  mind 
that  they  can  do  nothing,  but  on  the  spur  of  the  oc- 
casion: if  they  have  time  to  deliberate,  they  are  lost. 
There  are  others  who  have  no  resource,  who  cannot  ad- 
vance a  step  by  any  efforts  or  assistance,  beyond  a  suc- 
cessful arrangement  of  commonplaces:  but  these  they 
have  always  at  command,  at  everybody's  service. 
There  is  Ffletcher]  —  meet  him  where  you  will  in  the 
street,  he  has  his  topic  ready  to  discharge  in  the  same 
breath  with  the  customary  forms  of  salutations;  he  is 
hand  and  glove  with  it;  on  it  goes  and  off,  and  he 
manages  it  like  Wart  his  caliver. 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  17 

Hear  him  but  reason  in  divinity, 

And,  all-admiring,  with  an  inward  wish 

You  would  desire  the  King  were  made  a  prelate; 

Hear  him  debate  of  Commonwealth  affairs, 

You  would  say  it  hath  been  all  in  all  his  study; 

Turn  him  to  any  cause  of  policy, 

The  Gordian  knot  of  it  he  will  unloose, 

Familiar  as  his  garter;  that  when  he  speaks, 

The  air,  a  charter'd  libertine,  is  still  — 

[King Henry  V,i.\.  38  ff.] 

but,  ere  you  have  time  to  answer  him,  he  is  off  like  a 
shot,  to  repeat  the  same  rounded,  fluent  observations  to 
others:  —  a  perfect  master  of  the  sentences,  a  walking 
polemic  wound  up  for  the  day,  a  smartly  bound  political 
pocketbook!  Set  the  same  person  to  write  a  common 
paragraph,  and  he  cannot  get  through  it  for  very  weari- 
ness: ask  him  a  question,  ever  so  little  out  of  the  com- 
mon road,  and  he  stares  you  in  the  face.  What  does  all 
this  bustle,  animation,  plausibility,  and  command  of 
words  amount  to  ?  A  lively  flow  of  animal  spirits,  a 
good  deal  of  confidence,  a  communicative  turn,  and  a 
tolerably  tenacious  memory  with  respect  to  floating 
opinions  and  current  phrases.  Beyond  the  routine  of  the 
daily  newspapers  and  coffee-house  criticism,  such  per- 
sons do  not  venture  to  think  at  all:  or  if  they  did,  it 
would  be  so  much  the  worse  for  them,  for  they  would 
only  be  perplexed  in  the  attempt,  and  would  perform 
their  part  in  the  mechanism  of  society  with  so  much  the 
less  alacrity  and  easy  volubility. 

The  most  dashing  orator  I  ever  heard  is  the  flattest 
writer  I  ever  read.  In  speaking,  he  was  like  a  volcano 
vomiting  out  lava;  in  writing,  he  is  like  a  volcano  burnt 
out.  Nothing  but  the  dry  cinders,  the  hard  shell  re- 
mains. The  tongues  of  flame,  with  which,  in  haranguing 


1 8  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

a  mixed  assembly,  he  used  to  illuminate  his  subject,  and 
almost  scorched  up  the  panting  air,  do  not  appear 
painted  on  the  margin  of  his  works.  He  was  the  model 
of  a  flashy,  powerful  demagogue  —  a  madman  blest 
with  a  fit  audience.  He  was  possessed,  infuriated  with 
the  patriotic  mania;  he  seemed  to  rend  and  tear  the 
rotten  carcase  of  corruption  with  the  remorseless,  inde- 
cent rage  of  a  wild  beast:  he  mourned  over  the  bleeding 
body  of  his  country,  like  another  Antony  over  the  dead 
body  of  Csesar,  as  if  he  would  "move  the  very  stones  of 
Rome  to  rise  and  mutiny":  he  pointed  to  the  "Persian 
abodes,  the  glittering  temples"  of  oppression  and 
luxury,  with  prophetic  exultation;  and  like  another 
Helen,  had  almost  fired  another  Troy!  The  lightning  of 
national  indignation  flashed  from  his  eye;  the  workings 
of  the  popular  mind  were  seen  labouring  in  his  bosom: 
it  writhed  and  swelled  with  its  rank  "fraught  of  aspics' 
tongues,"  and  the  poison  frothed  over  at  his  lips.  Thus 
qualified,  he  "wielded  at  will  the  fierce  democracy,  and 
fulmin'd  over"  an  area  of  souls,  of  no  mean  circum- 
ference. He  who  might  be  said  to  have  "roared  you  in 
the  ears  of  the  groundlings  an  'twere  any  lion,  aggra- 
vates his  voice"  on  paper,  "like  any  sucking-dove."  It 
is  not  merely  that  the  same  individual  cannot  sit  down 
quietly  in  his  closet,  and  produce  the  same,  or  a  corre- 
spondent effect  —  that  what  he  delivers  over  to  the 
compositor  is  tame  and  trite  and  tedious  —  that  he 
cannot  by  any  means,  as  it  were,  "create  a  soul  under 
the  ribs  of  death"  —  but  sit  down  yourself,  and  read 
one  of  these  very  popular  and  electrical  effusions  (for 
they  have  been  published),  and  you  would  not  believe  it 
to  be  the  same!  The  thunder-and-lightning  mixture  of 
the  orator  turns  out  a  mere  drab-coloured  suit  in  the 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  19 

person  of  the  prose-writer.  We  wonder  at  the  change, 
and  think  there  must  be  some  mistake,  some  legerde- 
main trick  played  off  upon  us,  by  which  what  before 
appeared  so  fine  now  appears  to  be  so  worthless.  The 
deception  took  place  before;  now  it  is  removed.  "Bot- 
tom! thou  art  translated!  "  might  be  placed  as  a  motto 
under  most  collections  of  printed  speeches  that  I  have 
had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with,  whether  originally 
addressed  to  the  people,  the  senate,  or  the  bar.  Burke's 
and  Windham's  form  an  exception:  Mr.  Coleridge's 
Condones  ad  Populum  do  not,  any  more  than  Mr. 
Thelwall's  Tribune.  What  we  read  is  the  same:  what  we 
hear  and  see  is  different  —  "  the  selfsame  words,  but 
not  to  the  selfsame  tune."  The  orator's  vehemence  of 
gesture,  the  loudness  of  the  voice,  the  speaking  eye,  the 
conscious  attitude,  the  inexplicable  dumb  show  and 
noise,  —  all  "those  brave  sublunary  things  that  made 
his  raptures  clear,"  —  are  no  longer  there,  and  without 
these  he  is  nothing;  —  his  "fire  and  air"  turn  to  puddle 
and  ditch-water,  and  the  god  of  eloquence  and  of  our 
idolatry  sinks  into  a  common  mortal,  or  an  image  of 
lead,  with  a  few  labels,  nicknames,  and  party  watch- 
words stuck  in  his  mouth.  The  truth  is,  that  these  al- 
ways made  up  the  stock  of  his  intellectual  wealth;  but 
a  certain  exaggeration  and  extravagance  of  manner 
covered  the  nakedness  and  swelled  out  the  emptiness  of 
the  matter:  the  sympathy  of  angry  multitudes  with  an 
impassioned  theatrical  declaimer  supplied  the  place  of 
argument  or  wit;  while  the  physical  animation  and 
ardour  of  the  speaker  evaporated  in  "sound  and  fury, 
signifying  nothing,"  and  leaving  no  trace  behind  it.  A 
popular  speaker  (such  as  I  have  been  here  describing)  is 
like  a  vulgar  actor  off  the  stage  —  take  away  his  cue, 


2o  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

and  he  has  nothing  to  say  for  himself.  Or  he  is  so  accus- 
tomed to  the  intoxication  of  popular  applause,  that 
without  that  stimulus  he  has  no  motive  or  power  of 
exertion  left  —  neither  imagination,  understanding, 
liveliness,  common  sense,  words,  or  ideas  —  he  is  fairly- 
cleared  out;  and  in  the  intervals  of  sober  reason,  is  the 
dullest  and  most  imbecile  of  all  mortals. 

An  orator  can  hardly  get  beyond  commonplaces:  if  he 
does,  he  gets  beyond  his  hearers.  The  most  successful 
speakers,  even  in  the  House  of  Commons,  have  not  been 
the  best  scholars  or  the  finest  writers  —  neither  those 
who  took  the  most  profound  views  of  their  subject,  nor 
who  adorned  it  with  the  most  original  fancy,  or  the 
richest  combinations  of  language.  Those  speeches  that 
in  general  told  the  best  at  the  time,  are  not  now  read- 
able. What  were  the  materials  of  which  they  were 
chiefly  composed  ?  An  imposing  detail  of  passing 
events,  a  formal  display  of  official  documents,  an  appeal 
to  established  maxims,  an  echo  of  popular  clamour, 
some  worn-out  metaphor  newly  vamped  up,  —  some 
hackneyed  argument  used  for  the  hundredth,  nay 
thousandth  time,  to  fall  in  with  the  interests,  the  pas- 
sions, or  prejudices  of  listening  and  devoted  admirers; 
—  some  truth  or  falsehood,  repeated  as  the  Shibboleth 
of  party  time  out  of  mind,  which  gathers  strength  from 
sympathy  as  it  spreads,  because  it  is  understood  or 
assented  to  by  the  million,  and  finds,  in  the  increased 
action  of  the  minds  of  numbers,  the  weight  and  force  of 
an  instinct.  A  commonplace  does  not  leave  the  mind 
"sceptical,  puzzled,  and  undecided  in  the  moment  of 
action":  —  "it  gives  a  body  to  opinion,  and  a  per- 
manence to  fugitive  belief."  It  operates  mechanically, 
and  opens  an  instantaneous  and  infallible  communica- 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  21 

tion  between  the  hearer  and  speaker.  A  set  of  cant 
phrases,  arranged  in  sounding  sentences,  and  pro- 
nounced "with  good  emphasis  and  discretion,"  keep 
the  gross  and  irritable  humours  of  an  audience  in  con- 
stant fermentation;  and  levy  no  tax  on  the  understand- 
ing. To  give  a  reason  for  anything  is  to  breed  a  doubt 
of  it,  which  doubt  you  may  not  remove  in  the  sequel; 
either  because  your  reason  may  not  be  a  good  one,  or 
because  the  person  to  whom  it  is  addressed  may  not  be 
able  to  comprehend  it,  or  because  others  may  not  be 
able  to  comprehend  it.  He  who  offers  to  go  into  the 
grounds  of  an  acknowledged  axiom,  risks  the  unanimity 
of  the  company  "by  most  admired  disorder,"  as  he  who 
digs  to  the  foundation  of  a  building  to  show  its  solidity, 
risks  its  falling.  But  a  commonplace  is  enshrined  in  its 
own  unquestioned  evidence,  and  constitutes  its  own  im- 
mortal basis.  Nature,  it  has  been  said,  abhors  a  vacuum; 
and  the  House  of  Commons,  it  might  be  said,  hates 
everything  but  a  commonplace!  Mr.  Burke  did  not 
often  shock  the  prejudices  of  the  House:  he  endeavoured 
to  account  for  them,  to  "lay  the  flattering  unction"  of 
philosophy  "to  their  souls."  They  could  not  endure 
him.  Yet  he  did  not  attempt  this  by  dry  argument 
alone;  he  called  to  his  aid  the  flowers  of  poetical  fiction, 
and  strewed  the  most  dazzling  colours  of  language  over 
the  Standing  Orders  of  the  House.  It  was  a  double 
offence  to  them  —  an  aggravation  of  the  encroach- 
ments of  his  genius.  They  would  rather  "hear  a  cat 
mew  or  an  axletree  grate,"  than  hear  a  man  talk 
philosophy  by  the  hour  — 

Not  harsh  and  crabbed,  as  dull  fools  suppose, 

But  musical  as  is  Apollo's  lute, 

And  a  perpetual  teast  of  nectar'd  sweets, 

Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns.  [Comus,  477  ff.] 


22  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

He  was  emphatically  called  the  Dinner-Bel/.  They  went 
out  by  shoals  when  he  began  to  speak.  They  coughed 
and  shuffled  him  down.  While  he  was  uttering  some  of 
the  finest  observations  (to  speak  in  compass)  that  ever 
were  delivered  in  that  House,  they  walked  out,  not  as 
the  beasts  came  out  of  the  ark,  by  twos  and  by  threes, 
but  in  droves  and  companies  of  tens,  of  dozens,  and 
scores!  Oh!  it  is  "the  heaviest  stone  which  melancholy 
can  throw  at  a  man,"  when  you  are  in  the  middle  of  a 
delicate  speculation  to  see  "  a  robustious  periwig-pated 
fellow"  deliberately  take  up  his  hat  and  walk  out.  But 
what  effect  could  Burke's  finest  observations  be  ex- 
pected to  have  on  the  House  of  Commons  in  their 
corporate  capacity?  On  the  supposition  that  they  were 
original,  refined,  comprehensive,  his  auditors  had  never 
heard,  and  assuredly  they  had  never  thought  of  them 
before:  how  then  should  they  know  that  they  were 
good  or  bad,  till  they  had  time  to  consider  better  of  it, 
or  till  they  were  told  what  to  think?  In  the  meantime, 
their  effect  would  be  to  stop  the  question:  they  were 
blanks  in  the  debate:  they  could  at  best  only  be  laid 
aside  and  left  ad  referendum.  What  does  it  signify  if 
four  or  five  persons,  at  the  utmost,  felt  their  full  force 
and  fascinating  power  the  instant  they  were  delivered? 
They  would  be  utterly  unintelligible  to  nine-tenths  of 
the  persons  present,  and  their  impression  upon  any  par- 
ticular individual,  more  knowing  than  the  rest,  would  be 
involuntarily  paralysed  by  the  torpedo  touch  of  the 
elbow  of  a  country  gentleman  or  city  orator.  There  is  a 
reaction  in  insensibility  as  well  as  in  enthusiasm;  and 
men  in  society  judge  not  by  their  own  convictions,  but 
by  sympathy  with  others.  In  reading,  we  may  go  over 
the  page  again,  whenever  anything  new  or  questionable 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  23 

"gives  us  pause":  besides  we  are  by  ourselves,  and  it  is  a 
word  to  the  wise.  We  are  not  afraid  of  understanding  too 
much,  and  being  called  upon  to  unriddle.  In  hearing,  we 
are  (saving  the  mark!)  in  the  company  of  fools;  and 
time  presses.  Was  the  debate  to  be  suspended  while  Mr. 
Fox  or  Mr.  Windham  took  this  or  that  Honourable 
Member  aside,  to  explain  to  them  that  fine  observation  of 
Mr.  Burke's,  and  to  watch  over  the  new  birth  of  their 
understandings,  the  dawn  of  this  new  light!  If  we  were 
to  wait  till  Noble  Lords  and  Honourable  Gentlemen 
were  inspired  with  a  relish  for  abstruse  thinking,  and  a 
taste  for  the  loftier  flights  of  fancy,  the  business  of  this 
great  nation  would  shortly  be  at  a  stand.  No:  it  is  too 
much  to  ask  that  our  good  things  should  be  duly  appre- 
ciated by  the  first  person  we  meet,  or  in  the  next  minute 
after  their  disclosure;  if  the  world  are  a  little,  a  very 
little,  the  wiser  or  better  for  them  a  century  hence,  it  is 
full  as  much  as  can  be  modestly  expected !  The  impres- 
sion of  anything  delivered  in  a  large  assembly  must  be 
comparatively  null  and  void,  unless  you  not  only  under- 
stand and  feel  its  value  yourself,  but  are  conscious  that 
it  is  felt  and  understood  by  the  meanest  capacity  pres- 
ent. Till  that  is  the  case,  the  speaker  is  in  your  power, 
not  you  in  his.  The  eloquence  that  is  effectual  and 
irresistible  must  stir  the  inert  mass  of  prejudice,  and 
pierce  the  opaquest  shadows  of  ignorance.  Corporate 
bodies  move  slow  in  the  progress  of  intellect,  for  this 
reason,  that  they  must  keep  back,  like  convoys,  for  the 
heaviest  sailing  vessels  under  their  charge.  The  sinews 
of  the  wisest  councils  are,  after  all,  impudence  and 
interest:  the  most  enlightened  bodies  are  often  but 
slaves  of  the  weakest  intellects  they  reckon  among 
them,  and  the  best  intentioned  are  but  tools  of  the 
greatest  hypocrites  and  knaves.  .  .  . 


24  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

A  set  of  oratorical  flourishes,  indeed,  is  soon  ex- 
hausted, and  is  generally  all  that  the  extempore  speaker 
can  safely  aspire  to.  Not  so  with  the  resources  of  art 
or  nature,  which  are  inexhaustible,  and  which  the  writer 
has  time  to  seek  out,  to  embody,  and  to  fit  into  shape 
and  use,  if  he  has  the  strength,  the  courage,  and  patience 
to  do  so. 

There  is  then  a  certain  range  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion beyond  the  regular  rhetorical  routine,  on  which  the 
author,  to  vindicate  his  title,  must  trench  somewhat 
freely.  The  proof  that  this  is  undersood  to  be  so,  is, 
that  what  is  called  an  oratorical  style  is  exploded  from 
all  good  writing;  that  we  immediately  lay  down  an 
article,  even  in  a  common  newspaper,  in  which  such 
phrases  occur  as  "  the  Angel  of  Reform,"  "  the  drooping 
Genius  of  Albion";  and  that  a  very  brilliant  speech  at  a 
loyal  dinner-party  makes  a  very  flimsy,  insipid  pam- 
phlet. The  orator  has  to  get  up  for  a  certain  occasion  a 
striking  compilation  of  partial  topics,  which,  "  to  leave 
no  rubs  or  botches  in  the  work,"  must  be  pretty  familiar 
as  well  as  palatable  to  his  hearers;  and  in  doing  this,  he 
may  avail  himself  of  all  the  resources  of  an  artificial 
memory.  The  writer  must  be  original,  or  he  is  nothing. 
He  is  not  to  take  up  with  ready-made  goods;  for  he  has 
time  allowed  him  to  create  his  own  materials,  and  to 
make  novel  combinations  of  thought  and  fancy,  to  con- 
tend with  unforeseen  difficulties  of  style  and  execution, 
while  we  look  on,  and  admire  the  growing  work  in  secret 
and  at  leisure.  There  is  a  degree  of  finishing  as  well  as  ot 
solid  strength  in  writing  which  is  not  to  be  got  at  every 
day,  and  we  can  wait  for  perfection.  The  author  owes  a 
debt  to  truth  and  nature  which  he  cannot  satisfy  at 
sight,  but  he  has  pawned  his  head  on  redeeming  it.  It  is 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  25 

not  a  string  of  clap-traps  to  answer  a  temporary  or  party 
purpose  —  violent,  vulgar,  and  illiberal  —  but  general 
and  lasting  truth  that  we  require  at  his  hands.  We  go  to 
him  as  pupils,  not  as  partisans.  We  have  a  right  to  ex- 
pect from  him  profounder  views  of  things;  finer  obser- 
vations; more  ingenious  illustrations;  happier  and 
bolder  expressions.  He  is  to  give  the  choice  and  picked 
results  of  a  whole  life  of  study;  what  he  has  struck  out  in 
his  most  felicitous  moods,  has  treasured  up  with  most 
pride,  has  laboured  to  bring  to  light  with  most  anxiety 
and  confidence  of  success.  He  may  turn  a  period  in  his 
head  fifty  different  ways,  so  that  it  comes  out  smooth 
and  round  at  last.  He  may  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
simile,  and  it  may  have  vanished  again:  let  him  be  on 
the  watch  for  it,  as  the  idle  boy  watches  for  the  lurking- 
place  of  the  adder.  We  can  wait.  He  is  not  satisfied 
with  a  reason  he  has  offered  for  something:  let  him  wait 
till  he  finds  a  better  reason.  There  is  some  word,  some 
phrase,  some  idiom  that  expresses  a  particular  idea  bet- 
ter than  any  other,  but  he  cannot  for  the  life  of  him 
recollect  it:  let  him  wait  till  he  does.  Is  it  strange  that 
among  twenty  thousand  words  in  the  English  language, 
the  one  of  all  others  that  he  most  needs  should  have 
escaped  him  ?  There  are  more  things  in  nature  than 
there  are  words  in  the  English  language,  and  he  must 
not  expect  to  lay  rash  hands  on  them  all  at  once. 

Learn  to  write  slow:  all  other  graces 
Will  follow  in  their  proper  places.1 

1  Hazlitt  was  much  given  to  modifying  quotations  to  suit  his  pur- 
pose.  See  William  Walker's  Art  of  Reading: 

Learn  to  read  slow;  all  other  graces 

Will  follow  in  their  proper  places.  —  Editor. 


26  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

You  allow  a  writer  a  year  to  think  of  a  subject;  he 
should  not  put  you  off  with  a  truism  at  last.  You  allow 
him  a  year  more  to  find  out  words  for  his  thoughts;  he 
should  not  give  us  an  echo  of  all  the  fine  things  that  have 
been  said  a  hundred  times.1  All  authors,  however,  are 
not  so  squeamish;  but  take  up  with  words  and  ideas  as 
they  find  them  delivered  down  to  them.  Happy  are 
they  who  write  Latin  verses!  —  who  copy  the  style  of 
Dr.  Johnson!  —  who  hold  up  the  phrase  of  ancient 
Pistol !  They  do  not  trouble  themselves  with  those  hair- 
breadth distinctions  of  thought  or  meaning  that  puzzle 
nicer  heads;  —  let  us  leave  them  to  their  repose!  A  per- 
son in  habits  of  composition  often  hesitates  in  conversa- 
tion for  a  particular  word:  it  is  because  he  is  in  search  of 
the  best  word,  and  that  he  cannot  hit  upon.  In  writing 
he  would  stop  till  it  came.2  It  is  not  true,  however,  that 
the  scholar  could  avail  himself  of  a  more  ordinary  word 
if  he  chose,  or  readily  acquire  a  command  of  ordinary 
language;  for  his  associations  are  habitually  intense,  not 
vague  and  shallow;  and  words  occur  to  him  only  as 
tallies  to  certain  modifications  of  feeling.  They  are  links 
in  the  chain  of  thought.  His  imagination  is  fastidious, 
and  rejects  all  those  that  are  "of  no  mark  or  likelihood." 
Certain  words  are  in  his  mind  indissolubly  wedded  to 
certain  things;  and  none  are  admitted  at  the  levee  of  his 
thoughts   but   those  of  which   the   banns  have   been 

1  Just  as  a  poet  ought  not  to  cheat  us  with  lame  metre  and  defec- 
tive rhymes,  which  might  be  excusable  in  an  improvisatori  versifier.  — 
Author. 

2  That  is  essentially  a  bad  style  which  seems  as  if  the  person  writing 
it  never  stopped  for  breath,  nor  gave  himself  a  moment's  pause,  but 
strove  to  make  up  by  redundancy  and  fluency  for  want  of  choice  and 
correctness  of  expression.  —  Author. 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  27 

solemnised  with  scrupulous  propriety.  Again,  the  stu- 
dent finds  a  stimulus  to  literary  exertion,  not  in  the 
immediate  eclat  of  his  undertaking,  but  in  the  difficulty 
of  his  subject,  and  the  progressive  nature  of  his  task. 
He  is  not  wound  up  to  a  sudden  and  extraordinary 
effort  of  presence  of  mind;  but  is  for  ever  awake  to  the 
silent  influxes  of  things,  and  his  life  is  one  long  labour. 
Are  there  no  sweeteners  of  his  toil?  No  reflections,  in 
the  absence  of  popular  applause  or  social  indulgence,  to 
cheer  him  on  his  way?  Let  the  reader  judge.  His 
pleasure  is  the  counterpart  of,  and  borrowed  from  the 
same  source  as  the  writer's.  A  man  does  not  read  out  of 
vanity,  nor  in  company,  but  to  amuse  his  own  thoughts. 
If  the  reader,  from  disinterested  and  merely  intellectual 
motives,  relishes  an  author's  "fancies  and  good  nights," 
the  last  may  be  supposed  to  have  relished  them  no  less. 
If  he  laughs  at  a  joke,  the  inventor  chuckled  over  it  to 
the  full  as  much.  If  he  is  delighted  with  a  phrase,  he 
may  be  sure  the  writer  jumped  at  it;  if  he  is  pleased  to 
cull  a  straggling  flower  from  the  page,  he  may  believe 
that  it  was  plucked  with  no  less  fondness  from  the  face 
of  nature.  Does  he  fasten,  with  gathering  brow  and 
looks  intent,  on  some  difficult  speculation?  He  may  be 
convinced  that  the  writer  thought  it  a  fine  thing  to  split 
his  brain  in  solving  so  curious  a  problem,  and  to  publish 
his  discovery  to  the  world.  There  is  some  satisfaction  in 
the  contemplation  of  power;  there  is  also  a  little  pride  in 
the  conscious  possession  of  it.  With  what  pleasure  do  we 
read  books!  If  authors  could  but  feel  this,  or  remember 
what  they  themselves  once  felt,  they  would  need  no 
other  temptation  to  persevere. 

To  conclude  this  account  with  what  perhaps  I  ought 
to  have  set  out  with  —  a  definition  of  the  character  of  an 


28  WRITING  AND  SPEAKING 

author.  There  are  persons  who  in  society,  in  public 
intercourse,  feel  no  excitement, 

Dull  as  the  lake  that  slumbers  in  the  storm, 

but  who,  when  left  alone,  can  lash  themselves  into  a 
foam.  They  are  never  less  alone  than  when  alone. 
Mount  them  on  a  dinner-table,  and  they  have  nothing 
to  say;  shut  them  up  in  a  room  by  themselves,  and  they 
are  inspired.  They  are  "  made  fierce  with  dark  keeping." 
In  revenge  for  being  tongue-tied,  a  torrent  of  words 
flows  from  their  pens,  and  the  storm  which  was  so  long 
collecting  comes  down  apace.  It  never  rains  but  it 
pours.  Is  not  this  strange,  unaccountable?  Not  at  all 
so.  They  have  a  real  interest,  a  real  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  and  they  cannot  summon  up  all  that  interest,  or 
bring  all  that  knowledge  to  bear,  while  they  have  any- 
thing else  to  attend  to.  Till  they  can  do  justice  to  the 
feeling  they  have,  they  can  do  nothing.  For  this  they 
look  into  their  own  minds,  not  in  the  faces  of  a  gaping 
multitude.  What  they  would  say  (if  they  could)  does 
not  lie  at  the  orifices  of  the  mouth  ready  for  delivery, 
but  is  wrapped  in  the  folds  of  the  heart  and  registered 
in  the  chambers  of  the  brain.  In  the  sacred  cause  of 
truth  that  stirs  them,  they  would  put  their  whole 
strength,  their  whole  being  into  requisition;  and  as  it 
implies  a  greater  effort  to  drag  their  words  and  ideas 
from  their  lurking-places,  so  there  is  no  end  when  they 
are  once  set  in  motion.  The  whole  of  a  man's  thoughts 
and  feelings  cannot  lie  on  the  surface,  made  up  for  use; 
but  the  whole  must  be  a  greater  quantity,  a  mightier 
power,  if  thev  could  be  got  at,  layer  under  layer,  and 
brought  into  play  by  the  levers  of  imagination  and  re- 
flection.    Such  a  person   then  sees  farther  and  feels 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  29 

deeper  than  most  others.  He  plucks  up  an  argument  by 
the  roots,  he  tears  out  the  very  heart  of  his  subject.  He 
has  more  pride  in  conquering  the  difficulties  of  a  ques- 
tion, than  vanity  in  courting  the  favour  of  an  audience. 
He  wishes  to  satisfy  himself  before  he  pretends  to  en- 
lighten the  public.  He  takes  an  interest  in  things  in  the 
abstract  more  than  by  common  consent.  Nature  is  his 
mistress,  truth  his  idol.  The  contemplation  of  a  pure 
idea  is  the  ruling  passion  of  his  breast.  The  interven- 
tion of  other  people's  notions,  the  being  the  immediate 
object  of  their  censure  or  their  praise,  puts  him  out. 
What  will  tell,  what  will  produce  an  effect,  he  cares 
little  about:  and  therefore  he  produces  the  greatest. 
The  personal  is  to  him  an  impertinence;  so  he  conceals 
himself  and  writes.  Solitude  "becomes  his  glittering 
bride,  and  airy  thoughts  his  children."  Such  a  one  is  a 
true  author;  and  not  a  member  of  any  Debating  Club  or 
Dilettanti  Society  whatever! l 

1  I  have  omitted  to  dwell  on  some  other  differences  of  body  and 
mind  that  often  prevent  the  same  person  from  shining  in  both  capaci- 
ties of  speaker  and  writer.  There  are  natural  impediments  to  public 
speaking,  such  as  the  want  of  a  strong  voice  and  steady  nerves.  A 
high  authority  of  the  present  day  (Mr.  Canning)  has  thought  this  a 
matter  of  so  much  importance,  that  he  goes  so  far  as  even  to  let  it 
affect  the  constitution  of  Parliament,  and  conceives  that  gentlemen 
who  have  not  bold  foreheads  and  brazen  lungs,  but  modest  preten- 
sions and  patriotic  views,  should  be  allowed  to  creep  into  the  great 
assembly  of  the  nation  through  the  avenue  of  close  boroughs,  and  not 
to  be  called  upon  "to  face  the  storms  of  the  hustings."  In  this  point 
of  view,  Stentor  was  a  man  of  genius,  and  a  noisy  jack-pudding  may 
cut  a  considerable  figure  in  the  "Political  House  that  Jack  built."  I 
fancy  Mr.  C.  Wynne  is  the  only  person  in  the  kingdom  who  has  fully 
made  up  his  mind  that  a  total  defect  of  voice  is  the  most  necessary 
qualification  for  a  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons!  —  Author. 


II.  PRINCIPLES  OF  GROWTH 


PRINCIPLES  OF  GROWTH 

SIDNEY  THOMPSON  DOBELL 

i 824-1 874 

This  short  passage,  which  serves  as  a  kind  of  motto  for  the 
division  of  the  book  which  it  here  introduces,  is  taken  from  an 
article  on  "Currer  Bell"  which  Sidney  Dobell  contributed  to 
The  Palladium  in  September,  1850.  The  Palladium  was  a 
"monthly  journal  of  literature,  politics,  science,  and  art," 
published  in  Edinburgh  from  July,  1850,  to  March,  1851  (nine 
numbers). 

IET  no  man  think  to  improve  in  his  working  by  any 
->  knowledge  that  can  be  taken  up  or  laid  down  at 
will,  any  means  or  appliances  from  without.  All  im- 
provement in  the  creation  must  first  exist  in  the  creator. 
Say  not  to  the  artist,  write,  paint,  play,  by  such  and  such 
a  rule,  but  grow  by  it.  Have  you  literary  principles?  — 
write  them  in  your  leisure  hours  on  the  fleshly  tables  of 
the  heart.  Have  you  theories  of  taste  ?  —  set  your  brain 
in  idle  time  to  their  tune.  Is  there  a  virtue  you  would 
emulate,  or  a  fault  you  would  discard? —  gaze  on  spare 
days  upon  the  one  till  your  soul  has  risen  under  it  as  the 
tide  under  the  moon,  or  scourge  the  other  in  the  sight  of 
all  your  faculties  till  every  internal  sense  recoils  from 
its  company.  Then,  when  your  error  is  no  longer  a 
trespass  to  be  condemned  by  judgment,  but  an  impiety 
at  which  feeling  revolts  —  when  your  virtue  is  no  more 
obedience  to  a  formula,  but  the  natural  action  of  a  re- 
constructed soul  —  strike  off  the  clay  mold  from  the 
bronze  Apollo,  throw  your  critics  to  one  wind  and  their 
sermons  to  the  other,  let  Self  be  made  absolute  as  you 
take  up  your  pen  and  write,  like  a  god,  in  a  sublime 
egotism,  to  which  your  own  likes  and  dislikes  are  un 
questioned  law. 


THE   PRINCIPLES   OF  SUCCESS   IN 
LITERATURE 

GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES 

1817-1878 

"The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature"  appeared  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  May  15-November  1,  1865,  when  Lewes 
was  beginning  his  work  as  first  editor  of  the  periodical.  In 
1891  the  entire  treatise  of  six  chapters  was  made  available  for 
classroom  use  by  the  thoughtfulness  and  painstaking  of  Pro- 
fessor F.  N.  Scott,  whose  text  (published  by  Allyn  and  Bacon, 
Boston)  is  used  in  the  chapters  that  follow.  Although  these 
two  chapters  are  perhaps  the  most  stimulating  of  the  six,  the 
serious  student  of  writing  would  do  well  to  read  all  of  them. 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  VISION 

i.    Value  of  Insight  and  Personal  Experience 

ALL  good  Literature  rests  primarily  on  insight.  All 
±\.  bad  Literature  rests  upon  imperfect  insight,  or 
upon  imitation,  which  may  be  defined  as  seeing  at 
second-hand. 

There  are  men  of  clear  insight  who  never  become 
authors:  some,  because  no  sufficient  solicitation  from  in- 
ternal or  external  impulses  makes  them  bend  their  ener- 
gies to  the  task  of  giving  literary  expression  to  their 
thoughts;  and  some,  because  they  lack  the  adequate 
powers  of  literary  expression.  But  no  man,  be  his  telic- 
ity  and  facility  of  expression  what  they  may,  ever  pro- 
duces good  Literature  unless  he  sees  for  himself,  and  sees 
clearly.  It  is  the  very  claim  and  purpose  of  Literature 
to  show  others  what  they  failed  to  see.    Unless  a  man 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  3$ 

sees  this  clearly  for  himself,  how  can  he  show  it  to 
others? 

Literature  delivers  tidings  of  the  world  within  and 
the  world  without.  It  tells  of  the  facts  which  have  been 
witnessed,  reproduces  the  emotions  which  have  been 
felt.  It  places  before  the  reader  symbols  which  represent 
the  absent  facts,  or  the  relations  of  these  to  other  facts; 
and  by  the  vivid  presentation  of  the  symbols  of  emotion 
kindles  the  emotive  sympathy  of  readers.  The  art  of  se- 
lecting the  fitting  symbols,  and  of  so  arranging  them  as 
to  be  intelligible  and  kindling,  distinguishes  the  great 
writer  from  the  great  thinker;  it  is  an  art  which  also  re- 
lies on  clear  insight. 

The  value  of  the  tidings  brought  by  Literature  is  de- 
termined by  their  authenticity.  At  all  times  the  air  is 
noisy  with  rumours,  but  the  real  business  of  life  is  trans- 
acted on  clear  insight  and  authentic  speech.  False  tid- 
ings and  idle  rumours  may  for  an  hour  clamorously 
usurp  attention,  because  they  are  believed  to  be  true; 
but  the  cheat  is  soon  discovered,  and  the  rumour  dies. 
In  like  manner  Literature  which  is  unauthentic  may  suc- 
ceed as  long  as  it  is  believed  to  be  true:  that  is,  so  long  as 
our  intellects  have  not  discovered  the  falseness  of  its  pre- 
tensions, and  our  feelings  have  not  disowned  sympathy 
with  its  expressions.  These  may  be  truisms,  but  they 
are  constantly  disregarded.  Writers  have  seldom  any 
steadfast  conviction  that  it  is  of  primary  necessity  for 
them  to  deliver  tidings  about  what  they  themselves 
have  seen  and  felt.  Perhaps  their  intimate  conscious- 
ness assures  them  that  what  they  have  seen  or  felt  is 
neither  new  nor  important.  It  may  not  be  new,  it  may 
not  be  intrinsically  important;  nevertheless,  if  authen- 
tic, it  has  its  value,  and  a  far  greater  value  than  anything 


36  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

reported  by  them  at  second-hand.  We  cannot  demand 
from  every  man  that  he  have  unusual  depth  of  insight 
or  exceptional  experience;  but  we  demand  of  him  that  he 
give  us  of  his  best,  and  his  best  cannot  be  another's. 
The  facts  seen  through  the  vision  of  another,  reported 
on  the  witness  of  another,  may  be  true,  but  the  reporter 
cannot  vouch  for  them.  Let  the  original  observer  speak 
for  himself.  Otherwise  only  rumours  are  set  afloat.  If 
you  have  never  seen  an  acid  combine  with  a  base,  you 
cannot  instructively  speak  to  me  of  salts;  and  this,  of 
course,  is  true  in  a  more  emphatic  degree  with  reference 
to  more  complex  matters. 

Personal  experience  is  the  basis  of  all  real  Literature. 
The  writer  must  have  thought  the  thoughts,  seen  the  ob- 
jects (with  bodily  or  mental  vision),  and  felt  the  feelings; 
otherwise  he  can  have  no  power  over  us.]  Importance 
does  not  depend  on  rarity  so  much  as  on  authenticity. 
The  massacre  of  a  distant  tribe,  which  is  heard  through 
the  report  of  others,  falls  far  below  the  heart-shaking 
effect  of  a  murder  committed  in  our  presence.  Our  sym- 
pathy with  the  unknown  victim  may  originally  have 
been  as  torpid  as  that  with  the  unknown  tribe;  but  it 
has  been  kindled  by  the  swift  and  vivid  suggestions  of 
details  visible  to  us  as  spectators;  whereas  a  severe  and 
continuous  effort  of  imagination  is  needed  to  call  up  the 
kindling  suggestions  of  the  distant  massacre. 

So  little  do  writers  appreciate  the  importance  of  di- 
rect vision  and  experience,  that  they  are  in  general  silent 
about  what  they  themselves  have  seen  and  felt,  copious 
in  reporting  the  experience  of  others.  Nay,  they  are  ur- 
gently prompted  to  say  what  they  know  others  think, 
and  what  consequently  they  themselves  may  be  ex- 
pected to  think.   They  are  as  if  dismayed  at  their  own 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  37 

individuality,  and  suppress  all  traces  of  it  in  order  to 
catch  the  general  tone.  Such  men  may,  indeed,  be  of 
service  in  the  ordinary  commerce  of  Literature  as  dis- 
tributors. All  I  wish  to  point  out  is  that  they  are  distrib- 
utors, not  producers.  The  commerce  may  be  served  by 
second-hand  reporters,  no  less  than  by  original  seers; 
but  we  must  understand  this  service  to  be  commercial, 
and  not  literary.  The  common  stock  of  knowledge  gains 
from  it  no  addition.  The  man  who  detects  a  new  fact, 
a  new  property  in  a  familiar  substance,  adds  to  the  sci- 
ence of  the  age;  but  the  man  who  expounds  the  whole 
system  of  the  universe  on  the  reports  of  others,  unen- 
lightened by  new  conceptions  of  his  own,  does  not  add  a 
grain  to  the  common  store.  Great  writers  may  all  be 
known  by  their  solicitude  about  authenticity.  A  com- 
mon incident,  a  simple  phenomenon,  which  has  been  a 
part  of  their  experience,  often  undergoes  what  may  be 
called  "a  transfiguration"  in  their  souls,  and  issues  in 
the  form  of  Art;  while  many  world-agitating  events  in 
which  they  have  not  been  actors,  or  majestic  phenomena 
of  which  they  were  never  spectators,  are  by  them  left  to 
the  unhesitating  incompetence  of  writers  who  imagine 
that  fine  subjects  make  fine  works.  Either  the  great 
writer  leaves  such  materials  untouched,  or  he  employs 
them  as  the  vehicle  of  more  cherished,  because  more 
authenticated,  tidings,  —  he  paints  the  ruin  of  an  em- 
pire as  the  scenic  background  for  his  picture  of  the  dis- 
tress of  two  simple  hearts.  The  inferior  writer,  because 
he  lays  no  emphasis  on  authenticity,  cannot  understand 
this  avoidance  of  imposing  themes.  Condemned  by  na- 
tive incapacity  to  be  a  reporter,  and  not  a  seer,  he  hopes 
to  shine  by  the  reflected  glory  of  his  subjects.  It  is 
natural  in  him  to  mistake  ambitious  art  for  high  art. 
He  does  not  feel  that  the  best  is  the  highest. 


38  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

I  do  not  assert  that  inferior  writers  abstain  from  the 
familiar  and  trivial.  On  the  contrary,  as  imitators,  they 
imitate  everything  which  great  writers  have  shown  to 
be  sources  of  interest.  But  their  bias  is  towards  great 
subjects.  They  make  no  new  ventures  in  the  direction 
of  personal  experience.  They  are  silent  on  all  that  they 
have  really  seen  for  themselves.  Unable  to  see  the  deep 
significance  of  what  is  common,  they  spontaneously  turn 
towards  the  uncommon. 

There  is,  at  the  present  day,  a  fashion  in  Literature, 
and  in  Art  generally,  which  is  very  deplorable,  and 
which  may,  on  a  superficial  glance,  appear  at  variance 
with  what  has  just  been  said.  The  fashion  is  that  of 
coat-and-waistcoat  realism,  a  creeping  timidity  of  inven- 
tion, moving  almost  exclusively  amid  scenes  of  drawing- 
room  existence,  with  all  the  reticences  and  pettinesses 
of  drawing-room  conventions.  Artists  have  become 
photographers,  and  have  turned  the  camera  upon  the 
vulgarities  of  life,  instead  of  representing  the  more  impas- 
sioned movements  of  life.  The  majority  of  books  and  pic- 
tures are  addressed  to  our  lower  faculties;  they  make  no 
effort  as  they  have  no  power  to  stir  our  deeper  emotions 
by  the  contagion  of  great  ideas.  Little  that  makes  life 
noble  and  solemn  is  reflected  in  the  Art  of  our  day;  to 
amuse  a  languid  audience  seems  its  highest  aim.  Seeing 
this,  some  of  my  readers  may  ask  whether  the  artists 
have  not  been  faithful  to  the  law  I  have  expounded,  and 
chosen  to  paint  the  small  things  they  have  seen,  rather 
than  the  great  things  they  have  not  seen?  The  answer 
is  simple.  For  the  most  part  the  artists  have  not  painted 
what  they  have  seen,  but  have  been  false  and  conven- 
tional in  their  pretended  realism.  And  whenever  they 
have  painted  truly,  they  have  painted  successfully.  The 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  39 

authenticity  of  their  work  has  given  it  all  the  value 
which  in  the  nature  of  things  such  work  could  have. 
Titian's  portrait  of  'The  Young  Man  with  a  Glove'  is  a 
great  work  of  art,  though  not  of  great  art.  It  is  infinitely 
higher  than  a  portrait  of  Cromwell,  by  a  painter  unable 
to  see  into  the  great  soul  of  Cromwell,  and  to  make  us 
see  it;  but  it  is  infinitely  lower  than  Titian's  'Tribute 
Money,'  'Peter  the  Martyr,'  or  the  'Assumption.' 
Tennyson's  'Northern  Farmer'  is  incomparably  greater 
as  a  poem  than  Mr.  Bailey's  ambitious  'Festus';  but  the 
'Northern  Farmer'  is  far  below  'Ulysses'  or  'Guinevere,' 
because  moving  on  a  lower  level,  and  recording  the  facts 
of  a  lower  life. 

Insight  is  the  first  condition  of  Art.  Yet  many  a  man 
who  has  never  been  beyond  his  village  will  be  silent 
about  that  which  he  knows  well,  and  will  fancy  himself 
called  upon  to  speak  of  the  tropics  or  the  Andes  —  on 
the  reports  of  others.  Never  having  seen  a  greater  man 
than  the  parson  and  the  squire  —  and  not  having  seen 
into  them  —  he  selects  Cromwell  and  Plato,  Raphael 
and  Napoleon,  as  his  models,  in  the  vain  belief  that 
these  impressive  personalities  will  make  his  work  im- 
pressive. Of  course,  I  am  speaking  figuratively.  By 
"never  having  been  beyond  his  village,"  I  understand 
a  mental  no  less  than  topographical  limitation.  The 
penetrating  sympathy  of  genius  will,  even  from  a  vil- 
lage, traverse  the  whole  world.  What  I  mean  is,  that 
unless  by  personal  experience,  no  matter  through  what 
avenues,  a  man  has  gained  clear  insight  into  the  facts 
of  life,  he  cannot  successfully  place  them  before  us;  and 
whatever  insight  he  has  gained,  be  it  of  important  or  of 
unimportant  facts,  will  be  of  value  if  truly  reproduced. 
No  sunset  is  precisely  similar  to  another,  no  two  souls 


4o  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

are  affected  by  it  in  a  precisely  similar  way.  Thus  may 
the  commonest  phenomenon  have  a  novelty.  To  the  eye 
that  can  read  aright  there  is  an  infinite  variety  even  in 
the  most  ordinary  human  being.  But  to  the  careless, 
indiscriminating  eye  all  individuality  is  merged  in  a 
misty  generality.  Nature  and  men  yield  nothing  new  to 
such  a  mind.  Of  what  avail  is  it  for  a  man  to  walk  out 
into  the  tremulous  mists  of  morning,  to  watch  the  slow 
sunset,  and  wait  for  the  rising  stars,  if  he  can  tell  us 
nothing  about  these  but  what  others  have  already  told 
us  —  if  he  feels  nothing  but  what  others  have  already 
felt?  Let  a  man  look  for  himself  and  tell  truly  what  he 
sees.  We  will  listen  to  that.  We  must  listen  to  it,  for  its 
very  authenticity  has  a  subtle  power  of  compulsion. 
What  others  have  seen  and  felt  we  can  learn  better  from 
their  own  lips. 

ii.  Psychology  of  Mental  Vision 

I  have  not  yet  explained  in  any  formal  manner  what 
the  nature  of  that  insight  is  which  constitutes  what  I 
have  named  the  Principle  of  Vision;  although  doubtless 
the  reader  has  gathered  its  meaning  from  the  remarks 
already  made.  For  the  sake  of  future  applications  of 
the  principle  to  the  various  questions  of  philosophical 
criticism  which  must  arise  in  the  course  of  this  inquiry, 
it  may  be  needful  here  to  explain  (as  I  have  already  ex- 
plained elsewhere)  how  the  chief  intellectual  operations 

—  Perception,  Inference,  Reasoning,  and  Imagination 

—  may  be  viewed  as  so  many  forms  of  mental  vision. 
Perception,  as  distinguished  from  Sensation,  is  the 

presentation  before  Consciousness  of  the  details  which 
once  were  present  in  conjunction  with  the  object  at  this 
moment  affecting  Sense.   These  details  are  inferred  to  be 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  41 

still  in  conjunction  with  the  object,  although  not  re- 
vealed to  Sense.  Thus  when  an  apple  is  perceived  by 
me,  who  merely  see  it,  all  that  Sense  reports  is  of  a  cer- 
tain coloured  surface:  the  roundness,  the  firmness,  the 
fragrance,  and  the  taste  of  the  apple  are  not  present  to 
Sense,  but  are  made  present  to  Consciousness  by  the  act 
of  Perception.  The  eye  sees  a  certain  coloured  surface; 
the  mind  sees  at  the  same  instant  many  other  co-existent 
but  unapparent  facts  —  it  reinstates  in  their  due  order 
these  unapparent  facts.  Were  it  not  for  this  mental  vi- 
sion supplying  the  deficiencies  of  ocular  vision,  the  col- 
oured surface  would  be  an  enigma.  But  the  suggestion 
of  Sense  rapidly  recalls  the  experiences  previously  asso- 
ciated with  the  object.  The  apparent  facts  disclose  the 
facts  that  are  unapparent. 

Inference  is  only  a  higher  form  of  the  same  process. 
We  look  from  the  window,  see  the  dripping  leaves  and 
the  wet  ground,  and  infer  that  rain  has  fallen.  It  is  on 
inferences  of  this  kind  that  all  knowledge  depends.  The 
extension  of  the  known  to  the  unknown,  of  the  apparent 
to  the  unapparent,  gives  us  Science.  Except  in  the 
grandeur  of  its  sweep,  the  mind  pursues  the  same  course 
in  the  interpretation  of  geological  facts  as  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  ordinary  incidents  of  daily  experience. 
To  read  the  pages  of  the  great  Stone  Book,  and  to  per- 
ceive from  the  wet  streets  that  rain  has  recently  fallen, 
are  forms  of  the  same  intellectual  process.  In  the  one 
case  the  inference  traverses  immeasurable  spaces  of 
time,  connecting  the  apparent  facts  with  causes  (unap- 
parent facts)  similar  to  those  which  have  been  asso- 
ciated in  experience  with  such  results;  in  the  other  case 
the  inference  connects  wet  streets  and  swollen  gutters 
with  causes  which  have  been  associated  in  experience 


42  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

with  such  results.  Let  the  inference  span  with  its 
mighty  arch  a  myriad  of  years,  or  link  together  the 
events  of  a  few  minutes,  in  each  case  the  arch  rises  from 
the  ground  of  familiar  facts,  and  reaches  an  antece- 
dent which  is  known  to  be  a  cause  capable  of  producing 
them. 

The  mental  vision  by  which  in  Perception  we  see  the 
unapparent  details  —  i.e.,  by  which  sensations  formerly 
co-existing  with  the  one  now  afrecting  us  are  reinstated 
under  the  form  of  ideas  which  represent  the  objects  —  is 
a  process  implied  in  all  Ratiocination,  which  also  pre- 
sents an  ideal  series,  such  as  would  be  a  series  of  sensa- 
tions, if  the  objects  themselves  were  before  us.  A  chain 
of  reasoning  is  a  chain  of  inferences:  ideal  presentations 
of  objects  and  relations  not  apparent  to  Sense,  or  not 
presentable  to  Sense.  Could  we  realise  all  the  links  in 
this  chain,  by  placing  the  objects  in  their  actual  order  as 
a  visible  series,  the  reasoning  would  be  a  succession  of 
perceptions.  Thus  the  path  of  a  planet  is  seen  by  reason 
to  be  an  ellipse.  It  would  be  perceived  as  a  fact,  if  we 
were  in  a  proper  position  and  endowed  with  the  requisite 
means  of  following  the  planet  in  its  course;  but  not  hav- 
ing this  power,  we  are  reduced  to  infer  the  unapparent 
points  in  its  course  from  the  points  which  are  apparent. 
We  see  them  mentally.  Correct  reasoning  is  the  ideal 
assemblage  of  objects  in  their  actual  order  of  co-exist- 
ence and  succession.  It  is  seeing  with  the  mind's  eye. 
False  reasoning  is  owing  to  some  misplacement  of  the 
order  of  objects,  or  to  the  omission  of  some  links  in  the 
chain,  or  to  the  introduction  of  objects  not  properly  be- 
longing to  the  series.  It  is  distorted  or  defective  vision. 
The  terrified  traveller  sees  a  highwayman  in  what  is 
really  a  sign-post  in  the  twilight;  and  in  the  twilight  of 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  43 

knowledge,  the  terrified  philosopher  sees  a  pestilence 
foreshadowed  by  an  eclipse. 

Let  attention  also  be  called  to  one  great  source  of 
error,  which  is  also  a  great  source  of  power,  namely,  that 
much  of  our  thinking  is  carried  on  by  signs  instead  of 
images.  We  use  words  as  signs  of  objects;  these  suffice 
to  carry  on  the  train  of  inference,  when  very  few  images 
of  the  objects  are  called  up.  Let  any  one  attend  to  his 
thoughts  and  he  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  rare  and 
indistinct  in  general  are  the  images  of  objects  which 
arise  before  his  mind.  If  he  says,  "I  shall  take  a  cab  and 
get  to  the  railway  by  the  shortest  cut,"  it  is  ten  to  one 
that  he  forms  no  image  of  cab  or  railway,  and  but  a  very 
vague  image  of  the  streets  through  which  the  shortest 
cut  will  lead.  Imaginative  minds  see  images  where  ordi- 
nary minds  see  nothing  but  signs:  this  is  a  source  of 
power;  but  it  is  also  a  source  of  weakness;  for  in  the 
practical  affairs  of  life,  and  in  the  theoretical  investiga- 
tions of  philosophy,  a  too  active  imagination  is  apt  to 
distract  the  attention  and  scatter  the  energies  of  the 
mind. 

In  complex  trains  of  thought  signs  are  indispensable. 
The  images,  when  called  up,  are  only  vanishing  sugges- 
tions: they  disappear  before  they  are  more  than  half 
formed.  And  yet  it  is  because  signs  are  thus  substituted 
for  images  (paper  transacting  the  business  of  money) 
that  we  are  so  easily  imposed  upon  by  verbal  fallacies 
and  meaningless  phrases.  A  scientific  man  of  some 
eminence  was  once  taken  in  by  a  wag,  who  gravely 
asked  him  whether  he  had  read  Bunsen's  paper  on  the 
malleability  of  light.  He  confessed  that  he  had  not  read 
it:  "Bunsen  sent  it  to  me,  but  I've  not  had  time  to  look 
into  it." 


44  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

The  degree  in  which  each  mind  habitually  substitutes 
signs  for  images  will  be,  ceteris  paribus,  the  degree  in 
which  it  is  liable  to  error.  This  is  not  contradicted  by 
the  fact  that  mathematical,  astronomical,  and  physical 
reasonings  may,  when  complex,  be  carried  on  more  suc- 
cessfully by  the  employment  of  signs;  because  in  these 
cases  the  signs  themselves  accurately  represent  the  ab- 
stractness  of  the  relations.  Such  sciences  deal  only  with 
relations,  and  not  with  objects;  hence  greater  simplifica- 
tion ensures  greater  accuracy.  But  no  sooner  do  we  quit 
this  sphere  of  abstractions,  to  enter  that  of  concrete 
things,  than  the  use  of  symbols  becomes  a  source  of 
weakness.  Vigorous  and  effective  minds  habitually  deal 
with  concrete  images.  This  is  notably  the  case  with 
poets  and  great  literates.  Their  vision  is  keener  than 
that  of  other  men.  However  rapid  and  remote  their 
flight  of  thought,  it  is  a  succession  of  images,  not  of  ab- 
stractions. The  details  which  give  significance,  and 
which  by  us  are  seen  vaguely  as  through  a  vanishing 
mist,  are  by  them  seen  in  sharp  outlines.  The  image 
which  to  us  is  a  mere  suggestion,  is  to  them  almost  as 
vivid  as  the  object.  And  it  is  because  they  see  vividly 
that  they  can  paint  effectively. 

Most  readers  will  recognise  this  to  be  true  of  poets, 
but  will  doubt  its  application  to  philosophers,  because 
imperfect  psychology  and  unscientific  criticism  have 
disguised  the  identity  of  intellectual  processes  until  it 
has  become  a  paradox  to  say  that  imagination  is  not  less 
indispensable  to  the  philosopher  than  to  the  poet.  The 
paradox  falls  directly  we  restate  the  proposition  thus: 
both  poet  and  philosopher  draw  their  power  from  the 
energy  of  their  mental  vision  —  an  energy  which  disen- 
gages the  mind  from  the  somnolence  of  habit  and  from 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  45 

the  pressure  of  obtrusive  sensations.  In  general  men  are 
passive  under  Sense  and  the  routine  of  habitual  infer- 
ences. They  are  unable  to  free  themselves  from  the  im- 
portunities of  the  apparent  facts  and  apparent  relations 
which  solicit  their  attention;  and  when  they  make  room 
for  unapparent  facts,  it  is  only  for  those  which  are  famil- 
iar to  their  minds.  Hence  they  can  see  little  more  than 
what  they  have  been  taught  to  see;  they  can  only  think 
what  they  have  been  taught  to  think.  For  independent 
vision,  and  original  conception,  we  must  go  to  children 
and  men  of  genius.  The  spontaneity  of  the  one  is  the 
power  of  the  other.  Ordinary  men  live  among  marvels 
and  feel  no  wonder,  grow  familiar  with  objects  and  learn 
nothing  new  about  them.  Then  comes  an  independent 
mind  which  sees;  and  it  surprises  us  to  find  how  servile 
we  have  been  to  habit  and  opinion,  how  blind  to  what 
we  also  might  have  seen,  had  we  used  our  eyes.  The 
link,  so  long  hidden,  has  now  been  made  visible  to  us. 
We  hasten  to  make  it  visible  to  others.  But  the  flash  of 
light  which  revealed  that  obscured  object  does  not  help 
us  to  discover  others.  Darkness  still  conceals  much  that 
we  do  not  even  suspect.  We  continue  our  routine.  We 
always  think  our  views  correct  and  complete;  if  we 
thought  otherwise  they  would  cease  to  be  our  views;  and 
when  the  man  of  keener  insight  discloses  our  error,  and 
reveals  relations  hitherto  unsuspected,  we  learn  to  see 
with  his  eyes,  and  exclaim :  "  Now  surely  we  have  got  the 
truth." 

iii.  Vision  the  Criterion  of  Genius 

A  child  is  playing  with  a  piece  of  paper  and  brings  it 
near  the  flame  of  a  candle;  another  child  looks  on.  Both 
are  completely  absorbed  by  the  objects,  both  are  igno- 
rant or  oblivious  of  the  relation  between  the  combustible 


46  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

object  and  the  flame:  a  relation  which  becomes  appar- 
ent only  when  the  paper  is  alight.  What  is  called  the 
thoughtlessness  of  childhood  prevents  their  seeing  this 
unapparent  fact;  it  is  a  fact  which  has  not  been  suffi- 
ciently impressed  upon  their  experience  so  as  to  form  an 
indissoluble  element  in  their  conception  of  the  two  in 
juxtaposition.  Whereas  in  the  mind  of  the  nurse  this  re- 
lation is  so  vividly  impressed  that  no  sooner  does  the 
paper  approach  the  flame  than  the  unapparent  fact  be- 
comes almost  as  visible  as  the  objects,  and  a  warning  is 
given.  She  sees  what  the  children  do  not,  or  cannot  see. 
It  has  become  part  of  her  organised  experience. 

The  superiority  of  one  mind  over  another  depends  on 
the  rapidity  with  which  experiences  are  thus  organised. 
The  superiority  may  be  general  or  special:  it  may  mani- 
fest itself  in  a  power  of  assimilating  very  various  expe- 
riences, so  as  to  have  manifold  relations  familiar  to  it,  or 
in  a  power  of  assimilating  very  special  relations,  so  as  to 
constitute  a  distinctive  aptitude  for  one  branch  of  art  or 
science.  The  experience  which  is  thus  organised  must 
of  course  have  been  originally  a  direct  object  of  con- 
sciousness, either  as  an  impressive  fact  or  impressive  in- 
ference. Unless  the  paper  had  been  seen  to  burn,  no  one 
could  know  that  contact  with  flame  would  consume  it. 
By  a  vivid  remembrance  the  experience  of  the  past  is 
made  available  to  the  present,  so  that  we  do  not  need 
actually  to  burn  paper  once  more  —  we  see  the  relation 
mentally.  In  like  manner,  Newton  did  not  need  to  go 
through  the  demonstrations  of  many  complex  problems, 
they  flashed  upon  him  as  he  read  the  propositions;  they 
were  seen  by  him  in  that  rapid  glance,  as  they  would 
have  been  made  visible  through  the  slower  process  of 
demonstration.    A  good  chemist  does  not  need  to  test 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  47 

many  a  proposition  by  bringing  actual  gases  or  acids 
into  operation,  and  seeing  the  result;  he  foresees  the  re- 
sult: his  mental  vision  of  the  objects  and  their  properties 
is  so  keen,  his  experience  is  so  organised,  that  the  result 
which  would  be  visible  in  an  experiment,  is  visible  to 
him  in  an  intuition.  A  fine  poet  has  no  need  of  the 
actual  presence  of  men  and  women  under  the  fluctuat- 
ing impatience  of  emotion,  or  under  the  steadfast  hope- 
lessness of  grief;  he  needs  no  setting  sun  before  his 
window,  under  it  no  sullen  sea.  These  are  all  visible, 
and  their  fluctuations  are  visible.  He  sees  the  quivering 
lip,  the  agitated  soul;  he  hears  the  aching  cry,  and  the 
dreary  wash  of  waves  upon  the  beach. 

The  writer  who  pretends  to  instruct  us  should  first 
assure  himself  that  he  has  clearer  vision  of  the  things  he 
speaks  of —  knows  them  and  their  qualities,  if  not  bet- 
ter than  we,  at  least  with  some  distinctive  knowledge. 
Otherwise  he  should  announce  himself  as  a  mere  echo,  a 
middleman,  a  distributor.  Our  need  is  for  more  light. 
This  can  be  given  only  by  an  independent  seer  who 

Lends  a  precious  seeing  to  the  eye. 

[Love's  Labour  s  Lost,  IV,  3.] 

All  great  authors  are  seers.  "Perhaps  if  we  should 
meet  Shakspeare,"  says  Emerson,  "we  should  not  be 
conscious  of  any  steep  inferiority;  no:  but  of  great  equal- 
ity;—  only  that  he  possessed  a  strange  skill  of  using,  of 
classifying,  his  facts,  which  we  lacked.  For,  notwith- 
standing our  utter  incapacity  to  produce  anything  like 
'Hamlet'  or  'Othello,'  we  see  the  perfect  reception  this 
wit  and  immense  knowledge  of  life  and  liquid  eloquence 
find  in  us  all. "  l    This  aggrandisement  of  our  common 

1  Essay  on  Intellect. 


48  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

stature  rests  on  questionable  ground.  If  our  capacity  of 
being  moved  by  Shakspeare  discloses  a  community,  our 
incapacity  of  producing  'Hamlet'  no  less  discloses  our 
inferiority.  It  is  certain  that  could  we  meet  Shakspeare 
we  should  find  him  strikingly  like  ourselves  —  with  the 
same  faculties,  the  same  sensibilities,  though  not  in  the 
same  degree.  The  secret  of  his  power  over  us  lies,  of 
course,  in  our  having  the  capacity  to  appreciate  him.  Yet 
we  seeing  him  in  the  unimpassioned  moods  of  daily  life, 
it  is  more  than  probable  that  we  should  see  nothing  in 
him  but  what  was  ordinary;  nay,  in  some  qualities  he 
would  seem  inferior.  Heroes  require  a  perspective. 
They  are  men  who  look  superhuman  only  when  elevated 
on  the  pedestals  of  their  achievements.  In  ordinary  life, 
they  look  like  ordinary  men;  not  that  they  are  of  the 
common  mould,  but  seem  so  because  their  uncommon 
qualities  are  not  then  called  forth.  Superiority  requires 
an  occasion.  The  common  man  is  helpless  in  an  emer- 
gency: assailed  by  contradictory  suggestions,  or  con- 
fused by  his  incapacity,  he  cannot  see  his  way.  The 
hour  of  emergency  finds  a  hero  calm  and  strong,  and 
strong  because  calm  and  clear-sighted;  he  sees  what  can 
be  done,  and  does  it.  This  is  often  a  thing  of  great  sim- 
plicity, so  that  we  marvel  others  did  not  see  it.  Now  it 
has  been  done,  and  proved  successful,  many  underrate 
its  value,  thinking  that  they  also  would  have  done  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing.  The  world  is  more  just.  It  re- 
fuses to  men  unassailed  by  the  difficulties  of  a  situation 
the  glory  they  have  not  earned.  The  world  knows  how 
easy  most  things  appear  when  they  have  once  been 
done.  We  can  all  make  the  egg  stand  on  end  after 
Columbus. 

Shakspeare,  then,  would  probably  not  impress  us  with 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  49 

a  sense  of  our  inferiority  if  we  were  to  meet  him  to-mor- 
row. Most  likely  we  should  be  bitterly  disappointed; 
because,  having  formed  our  conception  of  him  as  the 
man  who  wrote  'Hamlet'  and  'Othello,'  we  forget  that 
these  were  not  the  products  of  his  ordinary  moods,  but 
the  manifestations  of  his  power  at  white  heat.  In  ordi- 
nary moods  he  must  be  very  much  as  ordinary  men,  and 
it  is  in  these  we  meet  him.  How  notorious  is  the  aston- 
ishment of  friends  and  associates  when  any  man's 
achievements  suddenly  emerge  into  renown.  "They 
could  never  have  believed  it."  Why  should  they? 
Knowing  him  only  as  one  of  their  circle,  and  not  being 
gifted  with  the  penetration  which  discerns  a  latent 
energy,  but  only  with  the  vision  which  discerns  apparent 
results,  they  are  taken  by  surprise.  Nay,  so  biassed  are 
we  by  superficial  judgments,  that  we  frequently  ignore 
the  palpable  fact  of  achieved  excellence  simply  because 
we  cannot  reconcile  it  with  our  judgment  of  the  man 
who  achieved  it.  The  deed  has  been  done,  the  work 
written,  the  picture  painted;  it  is  before  the  world,  and 
the  world  is  ringing  with  applause.  There  is  no  doubt 
whatever  that  the  man  whose  name  is  in  every  mouth 
did  the  work;  but  because  our  personal  impressions  of 
him  do  not  correspond  with  our  conceptions  of  a  power- 
ful man,  we  abate  or  withdraw  our  admiration,  and  at- 
tribute his  success  to  lucky  accident.  This  blear-eyed, 
taciturn,  timid  man,  whose  knowledge  of  many  things  is 
manifestly  imperfect,  whose  inaptitude  for  many  things 
is  apparent,  can  he  be  the  creator  of  such  glorious  works? 
Can  he  be  the  large  and  patient  thinker,  the  delicate  hu- 
mourist, the  impassioned  poet?  Nature  seems  to  have 
answered  this  question  for  us;  yet  so  little  are  we  in- 
clined to  accept  Nature's  emphatic  testimony  on  this 


50  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

point,  that  few  of  us  ever  see  without  disappointment 
the  man  whose  works  have  revealed  his  greatness. 

It  stands  to  reason  that  we  should  not  rightly  appre- 
ciate Shakspeare  if  we  were  to  meet  him,  simply  because 
we  should  meet  him  as  an  ordinary  man,  and  not  as  the 
author  of 'Hamlet.'  Yet  if  we  had  a  keen  insight  we 
should  detect  even  in  his  quiet  talk  the  marks  of  an  origi- 
nal mind.  We  could  not,  of  course,  divine,  without  evi- 
dence, how  deep  and  clear  his  insight,  how  mighty  his 
power  over  grand  representative  symbols,  how  prodigal 
his  genius:  these  only  could  appear  on  adequate  occa- 
sions. But  we  should  notice  that  he  had  an  independent 
way  of  looking  at  things.  He  would  constantly  bring 
before  us  some  latent  fact,  some  unsuspected  relation, 
some  resemblance  between  dissimilar  things.  We  should 
feel  that  his  utterances  were  not  echoes.  If  therefore, 
in  these  moments  of  equable  serenity,  his  mind  glancing 
over  trivial  things  saw  them  with  great  clearness,  we 
might  infer  that  in  moments  of  intense  activity  his  mind 
gazing  steadfastly  on  important  things  would  see  won- 
derful visions,  where  to  us  all  was  vague  and  shifting. 
During  our  quiet  walk  with  him  across  the  fields  he  said 
little,  or  little  that  was  memorable;  but  his  eye  was  tak- 
ing in  the  varying  forms  and  relations  of  objects,  and 
slowly  feeding  his  mind  with  images.  The  common 
hedge-row,  the  gurgling  brook,  the  waving  corn,  the 
shifting  cloud-architecture,  and  the  sloping  uplands, 
have  been  seen  by  us  a  thousand  times,  but  they  show 
us  nothing  new;  they  have  been  seen  by  him  a  thousand 
times,  and  each  time  with  fresh  interest,  and  fresh  dis- 
covery. If  he  describes  that  walk  he  will  surprise  us 
with  revelations:  we  can  then  and  thereafter  see  all  that 
he  points  out;  but  we  needed  his  vision  to  direct  our 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  51 

own.  And  it  is  one  of  the  incalculable  influences  of 
poetry  that  each  new  revelation  is  an  education  of  the 
eye  and  the  feelings.  We  learn  to  see  and  feel  Nature 
in  a  far  clearer  and  profounder  way,  now  that  we  have 
been  taught  to  look  by  poets.  The  incurious,  unimpas- 
sioned  gaze  of  the  Alpine  peasant  on  the  scenes  which 
mysteriously  and  profoundly  affect  the  cultivated  tour- 
ist, is  the  gaze  of  one  who  has  never  been  taught  to  look. 
The  greater  sensibility  of  educated  Europeans  to  in- 
fluences which  left  even  the  poetic  Greeks  unmoved,  is 
due  to  the  directing  vision  of  successive  poets. 

The  great  difficulty  which  besets  us  all  —  Shakspeares 
and  others,  but  Shakspeares  less  than  others  — is  the 
difficulty  of  disengaging  the  mind  from  the  thraldom  of 
sensation  and  habit,  and  escaping  from  the  pressure 
of  objects  immediately  present,  or  of  ideas  which 
naturally  emerge,  linked  together  as  they  are  by  old 
associations.  We  have  to  see  anew,  to  think  anew.  It 
requires  great  vigour  to  escape  from  the  old  and  spon- 
taneously recurrent  trains  of  thought.  And  as  this  vig- 
our is  native,  not  acquired,  my  readers  may,  perhaps, 
urge  the  futility  of  expounding  with  so  much  pains  a 
principle  of  success  in  Literature  which,  however  indis- 
pensable, must  be  useless  as  a  guide;  they  may  object 
that  although  good  Literature  rests  on  insight,  there  is 
nothing  to  be  gained  by  saying  "unless  a  man  have  the 
requisite  insight  he  will  not  succeed."  But  there  is 
something  to  be  gained.  In  the  first  place,  this  is  an  ana- 
lytical inquiry  into  the  conditions  of  success:  it  aims  at 
discriminating  the  leading  principles  which  inevitably 
determine  success.  In  the  second  place,  supposing  our 
analysis  of  the  conditions  to  be  correct,  practical  guid- 
ance must  follow.   We  cannot,  it  is  true,  gain  clearness 


52  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

of  vision  simply  by  recognising  its  necessity;  but  by 
recognising  its  necessity  we  are  taught  to  seek  for  it  as  a 
primary  condition  of  success;  we  are  forced  to  come  to 
an  understanding  with  ourselves  as  to  whether  we  have 
or  have  not  a  distinct  vision  of  the  thing  we  speak  of, 
whether  we  are  seers  or  reporters,  whether  the  ideas  and 
feelings  have  been  thought  and  felt  by  us  as  part  and 
parcel  of  our  own  individual  experience,  or  have  been 
echoed  by  us  from  the  books  and  conversation  of  others? 
We  can  always  ask,  are  we  painting  farm-houses  or 
fairies  because  these  are  genuine  visions  of  our  own,  or 
only  because  farm-houses  and  fairies  have  been  success- 
fully painted  by  others,  and  are  poetic  material? 

The  man  who  first  saw  an  acid  redden  a  vegetable- 
blue,  had  something  to  communicate;  and  the  man  who 
first  saw  (mentally)  that  all  acids  redden  vegetable- 
blues,  had  something  to  communicate.  But  no  man  can 
do  this  again.  In  the  course  of  his  teaching  he  may  have 
frequently  to  report  the  fact;  but  this  repetition  is  not  of 
much  value  unless  it  can  be  made  to  disclose  some  new 
relation.  And  so  of  other  and  more  complex  cases. 
Every  sincere  man  can  determine  for  himself  whether 
he  has  any  authentic  tidings  to  communicate;  and  al- 
though no  man  can  hope  to  discover  much  that  is  actu- 
ally new,  he  ought  to  assure  himself  that  even  what  is 
old  in  his  work  has  been  authenticated  by  his  own  expe- 
rience. He  should  not  even  speak  of  acids  reddening 
vegetable-blues  upon  mere  hearsay,  unless  he  is  speak- 
ing figuratively.  All  his  facts  should  have  been  verified 
by  himself,  all  his  ideas  should  have  been  thought  by 
himself.  In  proportion  to  the  fulfilment  of  this  condi- 
tion will  be  his  success;  in  proportion  to  its  non-fulfil- 
ment, his  failure. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  S3 

Literature  in  its  vast  extent  includes  writers  of  three 
different  classes,  and  in  speaking  of  success  we  must  al- 
ways be  understood  to  mean  the  acceptance  each  writer 
gains  in  his  own  class;  otherwise  a  flashy  novelist  might 
seem  more  successful  than  a  profound  poet;  a  clever 
compiler  more  successful  than  an  original  discoverer. 

The  Primary  Class  is  composed  of  the  born  seers  — 
men  who  see  for  themselves  and  who  originate.  These 
are  poets,  philosophers,  discoverers.  The  Secondary 
Class  is  composed  of  men  less  puissant  in  faculty,  but 
genuine  also  in  their  way,  who  travel  along  the  paths 
opened  by  the  great  originators,  and  also  point  out 
many  a  side-path  and  shorter  cut.  They  reproduce  and 
vary  the  materials  furnished  by  others,  but  they  do  this, 
not  as  echoes  only,  they  authenticate  their  tidings,  they 
take  care  to  see  what  the  discoverers  have  taught  them 
to  see,  and  in  consequence  of  this  clear  vision  they  are 
enabled  to  arrange  and  modify  the  materials  so  as  to 
produce  new  results.  The  Primary  Class  is  composed  of 
men  of  genius,  the  Secondary  Class  of  men  of  talent.  It 
not  unfrequently  happens,  especially  in  philosophy  and 
science,  that  the  man  of  talent  may  confer  a  lustre  on 
the  original  invention;  he  takes  it  up  a  nugget  and  lays 
it  down  a  coin.  Finally,  there  is  the  largest  class  of  all, 
comprising  the  Imitators  in  Art,  and  the  Compilers  in 
Philosophy.  These  bring  nothing  to  the  general  stock. 
They  are  sometimes  (not  often)  useful;  but  it  is  as  corn- 
factors,  not  as  corn-growers.  They  sometimes  do  good 
service  by  distributing  knowledge  where  otherwise  it 
might  never  penetrate;  but  in  general  their  work  is  more 
hurtful  than  beneficial:  hurtful,  because  it  is  essentially 
bad  work,  being  insincere  work,  and  because  it  stands  in 
the  way  of  better  work. 


54  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

Even  among  Imitators  and  Compilers  there  are  al- 
most infinite  degrees  of  merit  and  demerit:  echoes  of 
echoes  reverberating  echoes  in  endless  succession;  com- 
pilations of  all  degrees  of  worth  and  worthlessness.  But, 
as  will  be  shown  hereafter,  even  in  this  lower  sphere  the 
worth  of  the  work  is  strictly  proportional  to  the  Vision, 
Sincerity,  and  Beauty;  so  that  an  imitator  whose  eye  is 
keen  for  the  forms  he  imitates,  whose  speech  is  honest, 
and  whose  talent  has  grace,  will  by  these  very  virtues 
rise  almost  to  the  Secondary  Class,  and  will  secure  an 
honourable  success. 

I  have  as  yet  said  but  little,  and  that  incidentally,  ot 
the  part  played  by  the  Principle  of  Vision  in  Art.  Many 
readers  who  will  admit  the  principle  in  Science  and  Phi- 
losophy, may  hesitate  in  extending  it  to  Art,  which,  as 
they  conceive,  draws  its  inspirations  from  the  Imagina- 
tion. Properly  understood  there  is  no  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  two  opinions;  and  in  the  next  chapter  I  shall 
endeavour  to  show  how  Imagination  is  only  another 
form  of  this  very  Principle  of  Vision  which  we  have  been 
considering. 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SINCERITY 

i.  Literature  and  the  Public 

IT  is  always  understood  as  an  expression  of  condem- 
nation when  anything  in  Literature  or  Art  is  said 
to  be  done  for  effect;  and  yet  to  produce  an  effect  is  the 
aim  and  end  of  both. 

There  is  nothing  beyond  a  verbal  ambiguity  here  if 
we  look  at  it  closely,  and  yet  there  is  a  corresponding 
uncertainty  in   the  conception  of  Literature  and  Art 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  55 

commonly  entertained,  which  leads  many  writers  and 
many  critics  into  the  belief  that  what  are  called  "effects" 
should  be  sought,  and  when  found  must  succeed.  It  is 
desirable  to  clear  up  this  moral  ambiguity,  as  I  may  call 
it,  and  to  show  that  the  real  method  of  securing  the  legit- 
imate effect  is  not  to  aim  at  it,  but  to  aim  at  the  truth, 
relying  on  that  for  securing  effect.  The  condemnation 
of  whatever  is  "done  for  effect"  obviously  springs  from 
indignation  at  a  disclosed  insincerity  in  the  artist,  who 
is  self-convicted  of  having  neglected  truth  for  the  sake 
of  our  applause;  and  we  refuse  our  applause  to  the  flat- 
terer, or  give  it  contemptuously  as  to  a  mountebank 
whose  dexterity  has  amused  us. 

It  is  unhappily  true  that  much  insincere  Literature 
and  Art,  executed  solely  with  a  view  to  effect,  does  suc- 
ceed by  deceiving  the  public.  But  this  is  only  because 
the  simulation  of  truth  or  the  blindness  of  the  public 
conceals  the  insincerity.  As  a  maxim,  the  Principle  of 
Sincerity  is  admitted.  Nothing  but  what  is  true,  or  is 
held  to  be  true,  can  succeed;  anything  which  looks  like 
insincerity  is  condemned.  In  this  respect  we  may  com- 
pare it  with  the  maxim  of  Honesty  the  best  policy.  No 
far-reaching  intellect  fails  to  perceive  that  if  all  men 
were  uniformly  upright  and  truthful,  Life  would  be  more 
victorious,  and  Literature  more  noble.  We  find,  how- 
ever, both  in  Life  and  Literature,  a  practical  disregard 
of  the  truth  of  these  propositions  almost  equivalent  to  a 
disbelief  in  them.  Many  men  are  keenly  alive  to  the 
social  advantages  of  honesty  —  in  the  practice  of  others. 
They  are  also  strongly  impressed  with  the  conviction 
that  in  their  own  particular  case  the  advantage  will 
sometimes  lie  in  not  strictly  adhering  to  the  rule.  Hon- 
esty is  doubtless  the  best  policy  in  the  long  run;  but 


56  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

somehow  the  run  here  seems  so  very  long,  and  a  short-cut 
opens  such  allurements  to  impatient  desire.  It  requires 
a  firm  calm  insight,  or  a  noble  habit  of  thought,  to 
steady  the  wavering  mind,  and  direct  it  away  from  de- 
lusive short-cuts:  to  make  belief  practice,  and  forego  im- 
mediate triumph.  Many  of  those  who  unhesitatingly 
admit  Sincerity  to  be  one  great  condition  of  success  in 
Literature  find  it  difficult,  and  often  impossible,  to  re- 
sist the  temptation  of  an  insincerity  which  promises 
immediate  advantage.  It  is  not  only  the  grocers  who 
sand  their  sugar  before  prayers.  Writers  who  know  well 
enough  that  the  triumph  of  falsehood  is  an  unholy  tri- 
umph, are  not  deterred  from  falsehood  by  that  knowl- 
edge. They  know,  perhaps,  that,  even  if  undetected, 
it  will  press  on  their  own  consciences;  but  the  knowledge 
avails  them  little.  The  immediate  pressure  of  the  temp- 
tation is  yielded  to,  and  Sincerity  remains  a  text  to  be 
preached  to  others.  To  gain  applause  they  will  misstate 
facts,  to  gain  victory  in  argument  they  will  misrepresent 
the  opinions  they  oppose;  and  they  suppress  the  rising 
misgivings  by  the  dangerous  sophism  that  to  discredit 
error  is  good  work,  and  by  the  hope  that  no  one  will  de- 
tect the  means  by  which  the  work  is  effected.  The  sad- 
dest aspect  of  this  procedure  is  that  in  Literature,  as  in 
Life,  a  temporary  success  often  does  reward  dishonesty. 
It  would  be  insincere  to  conceal  it.  To  gain  a  reputation 
as  discoverers  men  will  invent  or  suppress  facts.  To 
appear  learned,  they  will  array  their  writings  in  the  os- 
tentation of  borrowed  citations.  To  solicit  the  "sweet 
voices"  of  the  crowd,  they  will  feign  sentiments  they  do 
not  feel,  and  utter  what  they  think  the  crowd  will  wish 
to  hear,  keeping  back  whatever  the  crowd  will  hear  with 
disapproval.    And,  as  I  said,  such  men  often  succeed 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  57 

for  a  time;  the  fact  is  so,  and  we  must  not  pretend  that 
it  is  otherwise.  But  it  no  more  disturbs  the  fundamental 
truth  of  the  Principle  of  Sincerity  than  the  perturba- 
tions in  the  orbit  of  Mars  disturb  the  truth  of  Kepler's 
law. 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  dishonest  men  often 
grow  rich  and  famous,  becoming  powerful  in  their  parish 
or  in  parliament.  Their  portraits  simper  from  shop  win- 
dows; and  they  live  and  die  respected.  This  success  is 
theirs;  yet  it  is  not  the  success  which  a  noble  soul  will 
envy.  Apart  from  the  risk  of  discovery  and  infamy, 
there  is  the  certainty  of  a  conscience  ill  at  ease,  or  if  at 
ease,  so  blunted  in  its  sensibilities,  so  given  over  to  lower 
lusts,  that  a  healthy  instinct  recoils  from  such  a  state. 
Observe,  moreover,  that  in  Literature  the  possible  re- 
wards of  dishonesty  are  small,  and  the  probability  of 
detection  great.  In  Life  a  dishonest  man  is  chiefly 
moved  by  desires  towards  some  tangible  result  of  money 
or  power;  if  he  get  these  he  has  got  all.  The  man  of  let- 
ters has  a  higher  aim;  the  very  object  of  his  toil  is  to  se- 
cure the  sympathy  and  respect  of  men;  and  the  rewards 
of  his  toil  may  be  paid  in  money,  fame,  or  consciousness 
of  earnest  effort.  The  first  of  these  may  sometimes  be 
gained  without  Sincerity.  Fame  may  also,  for  a  time,  be 
erected  on  an  unstable  ground,  though  it  will  inevitably 
be  destroyed  again.  But  the  last  and  not  least  reward  is 
to  be  gained  by  every  one  without  fear  of  failure,  with- 
out risk  of  change.  Sincere  work  is  good  work,  be  it 
never  so  humble;  and  sincere  work  is  not  only  an  inde- 
structible delight  to  the  worker  by  its  very  genuineness, 
but  is  immortal  in  the  best  sense,  for  it  lives  for  ever  in 
its  influence.  There  is  no  good  Dictionary,  not  even  a 
good  Index,  that  is  not  in  this  sense  priceless,  for  it  has 


58  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

honestly  furthered  the  work  of  the  world,  saving  labour 
to  others,  setting  an  example  to  successors.  Whether  I 
make  a  careful  Index,  or  an  inaccurate  one,  will  prob- 
ably in  no  respect  affect  the  money-payment  I  shall  re- 
ceive. My  sins  will  never  fall  heavily  on  me;  my  virtue 
will  gain  me  neither  extra  pence  nor  praise.  I  shall  be 
hidden  by  obscurity  from  the  indignation  of  those  whose 
valuable  time  is  wasted  over  my  pretence  at  accuracy, 
as  from  the  silent  gratitude  of  those  whose  time  is  saved 
by  my  honest  fidelity.  The  consciousness  of  faithfulness 
even  to  the  poor  index  maker  may  be  a  better  reward 
than  pence  or  praise;  but  of  course  we  cannot  expect  the 
unconscientious  to  believe  this.  If  I  sand  my  sugar, and 
tell  lies  over  my  counter,  I  may  gain  the  rewards  of  dis- 
honesty, or  I  may  be  overtaken  by  its  Nemesis.  But  if  I 
am  faithful  in  my  work  the  reward  cannot  be  withheld 
from  me.  The  obscure  workers  who,  knowing  that  they 
will  never  earn  renown  yet  feel  an  honourable  pride  in 
doing  their  work  faithfully,  may  be  likened  to  the  benev- 
olent who  feel  a  noble  delight  in  performing  generous 
actions  which  will  never  be  known  to  be  theirs,  the  only 
end  they  seek  in  such  actions  being  the  good  which  is 
wrought  for  others,  and  their  delight  being  the  sym- 
pathy with  others. 

I  should  be  ashamed  to  insist  on  truths  so  little  likely 
to  be  disputed,  did  they  not  point  directly  at  the  great 
source  of  bad  Literature,  which,  as  was  said  in  our  first 
chapter,  springs  from  a  want  of  proper  moral  guidance 
rather  than  from  deficiency  of  talent.  The  Principle  of 
Sincerity  comprises  all  those  qualities  of  courage,  pa- 
tience, honesty,  and  simplicity  which  give  momentum 
to  talent,  and  determine  successful  Literature.  It  is  not 
enough  to  have  the  eye  to  see;  there  must  also  be  the 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  59 

courage  to  express  what  the  eye  has  seen,  and  the  stead- 
fastness of  a  trust  in  truth.  Insight,  imagination,  grace 
of  style  are  potent;  but  their  power  is  delusive  unless 
sincerely  guided.  If  any  one  should  object  that  this  is  a 
truism,  the  answer  is  ready:  Writers  disregard  its  truth 
as  traders  disregard  the  truism  of  Honesty  being  the  best 
policy.  Nay,  as  even  the  most  upright  men  are  occa- 
sionally liable  to  swerve  from  the  truth,  so  the  most  up- 
right authors  will  in  some  passages  desert  a  perfect  sin- 
cerity; yet  the  ideal  of  both  is  rigorous  truth.  Men  who 
are  never  flagrantly  dishonest  are  at  times  unveracious 
in  small  matters,  colouring  or  suppressing  facts  with  a 
conscious  purpose;  and  writers  who  never  stole  an  idea 
nor  pretended  to  honours  for  which  they  had  not  striven, 
may  be  found  lapsing  into  small  insincerities,  speaking  a 
language  which  is  not  theirs,  uttering  opinions  which 
they  expect  to  gain  applause  rather  than  the  opinions 
really  believed  by  them.  But  if  few  men  are  perfectly 
and  persistently  sincere,  Sincerity  is  nevertheless  the 
only  enduring  strength. 

The  principle  is  universal,  stretching  from  the  highest 
purposes  of  Literature  down  to  its  smallest  details.  It 
underlies  the  labour  of  the  philosopher,  the  investigator, 
the  moralist,  the  poet,  the  novelist,  the  critic,  the  his- 
torian, and  the  compiler.  It  is  visible  in  the  publication 
of  opinions,  in  the  structure  of  sentences,  and  in  the 
fidelity  of  citations.  Men  utter  insincere  thoughts,  they 
express  themselves  in  echoes  and  affectations,  and  they 
are  careless  or  dishonest  in  their  use  of  the  labours  of 
others,  all  the  time  believing  in  the  virtue  of  sincerity, 
all  the  time  trying  to  make  others  believe  honesty  to  be 
the  best  policy. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  most  important 


60  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

applications  of  the  principle.  A  man  must  be  himself 
convinced  if  he  is  to  convince  others.  The  prophet  must 
be  his  own  disciple,  or  he  will  make  none.  Enthusiasm 
is  contagious:  belief  creates  belief.  There  is  no  influence 
issuing  from  unbelief  or  from  languid  acquiescence.  This 
is  peculiarly  noticeable  in  Art,  because  Art  depends  on 
sympathy  for  its  influence,  and  unless  the  artist  has  felt 
the  emotions  he  depicts  we  remain  unmoved:  in  propor- 
tion to  the  depth  of  his  feeling  is  our  sympathetic  re- 
sponse; in  proportion  to  the  shallowness  or  falsehood  of 
his  presentation  is  our  coldness  or  indifference.  Many 
writers  who  have  been  fond  of  quoting  the  si  vis  meflere1 
of  Horace  have  written  as  if  they  did  not  believe  a  word 
of  it;  for  they  have  been  silent  on  their  own  convictions, 
suppressed  their  own  experience,  and  falsified  their  own 
feelings  to  repeat  the  convictions  and  fine  phrases  of 
another.  I  am  sorry  that  my  experience  assures  me  that 
many  of  those  who  will  read  with  complete  assent  all 
here  written  respecting  the  power  of  Sincerity,  will 
basely  desert  their  allegiance  to  the  truth  the  next  time 
they  begin  to  write;  and  they  will  desert  it  because  their 
misguided  views  of  Literature  prompt  them  to  think 
more  of  what  the  public  is  likely  to  applaud  than  of  what 
is  worth  applause;  unfortunately  for  them  their  estima- 
tion of  this  likelihood  is  generally  based  on  a  very  erro- 
neous assumption  of  public  wants:  they  grossly  mistake 
the  taste  they  pander  to. 

ii.  The  Value  of  Sincerity 

In  all  sincere  speech  there  is  power,  not  necessarily 
great  power,  but  as  much  as  the  speaker  is  capable  of. 

1  Ars  Poetica,  1.  102.   "If  you  wish  me  to  weep,  you  must  your- 
self grieve  first."  —  Editor. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  61 

Speak  for  yourself  and  from  yourself,  or  be  silent.  It 
can  be  of  no  good  that  you  should  tell  in  your  "clever" 
feeble  way  what  another  has  already  told  us  with  the 
dynamic  energy  of  conviction.  If  you  can  tell  us  some- 
thing that  your  own  eyes  have  seen,  your  own  mind  has 
thought,  your  own  heart  has  felt,  you  will  have  power 
over  us,  and  all  the  real  power  that  is  possible  for  you. 
If  what  you  have  seen  is  trivial,  if  what  you  have 
thought  is  erroneous,  if  what  you  have  felt  is  feeble,  it 
would  assuredly  be  better  that  you  should  not  speak  at 
all;  but  if  you  insist  on  speaking,  Sincerity  will  secure 
the  uttermost  of  power.1 

The  delusions  of  self-love  cannot  be  prevented,  but 
intellectual  misconceptions  as  to  the  means  of  achieving 
success  may  be  corrected.  Thus  although  it  may  not  be 
possible  for  any  introspection  to  discover  whether  we 
have  genius  or  effective  power,  it  is  quite  possible  to 
know  whether  we  are  trading  upon  borrowed  capital, 
and  whether  the  eagle's  feathers  have  been  picked  up  by 
us,  or  grow  from  our  own  wings.  I  hear  some  one  of  my 
young  readers  exclaim  against  the  disheartening  tend- 
ency of  what  is  here  said.  Ambitious  of  success,  and 
conscious  that  he  has  no  great  resources  within  his  own 
experience,  he  shrinks  from  the  idea  of  being  thrown 
upon  his  naked  faculty  and  limited  resources,  when  he 
feels  himself  capable  of  dexterously  using  the  resources 
of  others,  and  so  producing  an  effective  work.  "Why," 
he  asks,  "must  I  confine  myself  to  my  own  small  ex- 
perience, when  I  feel  persuaded  that  it  will  interest  no 

1  "Every  effort  of  art,"  said  Mr.  Kipling  to  a  newspaper  reporter 
who  interviewed  him,  "is  an  effort  to  be  sincere.  There  is  no  surer 
guide  than  the  determination  to  tell  the  truth  that  one  feels."  — 
Editor. 


62  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

one?  Why  express  the  opinions  to  which  my  own  in- 
vestigations have  led  me  when  I  suspect  that  they  are 
incomplete,  perhaps  altogether  erroneous,  and  when  I 
know  that  they  will  not  be  popular  because  they  are  un- 
like those  which  have  hitherto  found  favour?  Your  re- 
strictions would  reduce  two-thirds  of  our  writers  to 
silence!" 

This  reduction  would,  I  suspect,  be  welcomed  by 
every  one  except  the  gagged  writers;  but  as  the  idea  of 
its  being  operative  is  too  chimerical  for  us  to  entertain 
it,  and  as  the  purpose  of  these  pages  is  to  expound  the 
principles  of  success  and  failure,  not  to  make  quixotic 
onslaughts  on  the  windmills  of  stupidity  and  conceit,  I 
answer  my  young  interrogator:  "Take  warning  and  do 
not  write.  Unless  you  believe  in  yourself,  only  noodles 
will  believe  in  you,  and  they  but  tepidly.  If  your  ex- 
perience seems  trivial  to  you,  it  must  seem  trivial  to  us. 
If  your  thoughts  are  not  fervid  convictions,  or  sincere 
doubts,  they  will  not  have  the  power  of  convictions  and 
doubts.  To  believe  in  yourself  is  the  first  step;  to  pro- 
claim your  belief  the  next.  You  cannot  assume  the 
power  of  another.  No  jay  becomes  an  eagle  by  borrow- 
ing a  few  eagle  feathers.  It  is  true  that  your  sincerity 
will  not  be  a  guarantee  of  power.  You  may  believe  that 
to  be  important  and  novel  which  we  all  recognise  as 
trivial  and  old.  You  may  be  a  madman,  and  believe 
yourself  a  prophet.  You  may  be  a  mere  echo,  and  be- 
lieve yourself  a  voice.  These  are  among  the  delusions 
against  which  none  of  us  are  protected.  But  if  Sincerity 
is  not  necessarily  a  guarantee  of  power,  it  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  power,  and  no  genius  or  prophet  can  exist 
without  it." 

"The  highest  merit  we  ascribe  to  Moses,  Plato,  and 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  63 

Milton,"  says  Emerson,1  ''is  that  they  set  at  nought 
books  and  traditions,  and  spoke  not  what  men  thought, 
but  what  they  thought.  A  man  should  learn  to  detect 
and  watch  that  gleam  of  light  which  flashes  across  his 
mind  from  within;  more  than  the  lustre  of  the  firmament 
of  bards  and  sages.  Yet  he  dismisses  without  notice  his 
thought  because  it  is  his.  In  every  work  of  genius  we 
recognise  our  own  rejected  thoughts;  they  come  back  to 
us  with  a  certain  alienated  majesty. "  It  is  strange  that 
any  one  who  has  recognised  the  individuality  of  all 
works  of  lasting  influence,  should  not  also  recognise  the 
fact  that  his  own  individuality  ought  to  be  steadfastly 
preserved.  As  Emerson  says  in  continuation,  "Great 
works  of  art  have  no  more  affecting  lesson  for  us  than 
this.  They  teach  us  to  abide  by  our  spontaneous  im- 
pressions with  good-humoured  inflexibility,  then  most 
when  the  whole  cry  of  voices  is  on  the  other  side.  Else 
to-morrow  a  stranger  will  say  with  masterly  good  sense 
precisely  what  we  have  thought  and  felt  all  the  time, 
and  we  shall  be  forced  to  take  with  shame  our  opinion 
from  another."  Accepting  the  opinions  of  another  and 
the  tastes  of  another  is  very  different  from  agreement  in 
opinion  and  taste.  Originality  is  independence,  not  re- 
bellion; it  is  sincerity,  not  antagonism.  Whatever  you 
believe  to  be  true  and  false,  that  proclaim  to  be  true  and 
false;  whatever  you  think  admirable  and  beautiful,  that 
should  be  your  model,  even  if  all  your  friends  and  all  the 
critics  storm  at  you  as  a  crotchet-monger  and  an  eccen- 
tric. Whether  the  public  will  feel  its  truth  and  beauty 
at  once,  or  after  long  years,  or  never  cease  to  regard  it  as 
paradox  and  ugliness,  no  man  can  foresee;  enough  for 
you  to  know  that  you  have  done  your  best,  have  been 

1  Essay  on  Self -Reliance. 


64  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

true  to  yourself,  and  that  the  utmost  power  inherent  in 
your  work  has  been  displayed. 

An  orator  whose  purpose  is  to  persuade  men  must 
speak  the  things  they  wish  to  hear;  an  orator,  whose 
purpose  is  to  move  men,  must  also  avoid  disturbing  the 
emotional  effect  by  any  obtrusion  of  intellectual  antag- 
onism; but  an  author  whose  purpose  is  to  instruct  men, 
who  appeals  to  the  intellect,  must  be  careless  of  their 
opinions,  and  think  only  of  truth.  It  will  often  be  a 
question  when  a  man  is  or  is  not  wise  in  advancing  un- 
palatable opinions,  or  in  preaching  heresies;  but  it  can 
never  be  a  question  that  a  man  should  be  silent  if  unpre- 
pared to  speak  the  truth  as  he  conceives  it.  Deference 
to  popular  opinion  is  one  great  source  of  bad  writing, 
and  is  all  the  more  disastrous  because  the  deference  is 
paid  to  some  purely  hypothetical  requirement.  When  a 
man  fails  to  see  the  truth  of  certain  generally  accepted 
views,  there  is  no  law  compelling  him  to  provoke  ani- 
mosity by  announcing  his  dissent.  He  may  be  excused 
if  he  shrink  from  the  lurid  glory  of  martyrdom ;  he  may  be 
justified  in  not  placing  himself  in  a  position  of  singular- 
ity. He  may  even  be  commended  for  not  helping  to 
perplex  mankind  with  doubts  which  he  feels  to  be 
founded  on  limited  and  possibly  erroneous  investigation. 
But  if  allegiance  to  truth  lays  no  stern  command  upon 
him  to  speak  out  his  immature  dissent,  it  does  lay  a 
stern  command  not  to  speak  out  hypocritical  assent. 
There  are  many  justifications  of  silence;  there  can  be 
none  of  insincerity. 

Nor  is  this  less  true  of  minor  questions;  it  applies 
equally  to  opinions  on  matters  of  taste  and  personal 
feeling.  Why  should  I  echo  what  seem  to  me  the  ex- 
travagant praises  of  Raphael's  'Transfiguration,'  when, 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  65 

in  truth,  I  do  not  greatly  admire  that  famous  work? 
There  is  no  necessity  for  me  to  speak  on  the  subject  at 
all;  but  if  I  do  speak,  surely  it  is  to  utter  my  impressions, 
and  not  to  repeat  what  others  have  uttered.  Here,  then, 
is  a  dilemma;  if  I  say  what  I  really  feel  about  this  work, 
after  vainly  endeavouring  day  after  day  to  discover  the 
transcendent  merits  discovered  by  thousands  (or  at 
least  proclaimed  by  them),  there  is  every  likelihood  of 
my  incurring  the  contempt  of  connoisseurs,  and  of  being 
reproached  with  want  of  taste  in  art.  This  is  the  bug- 
bear which  scares  thousands.  For  myself,  I  would  rather 
incur  the  contempt  of  connoisseurs  than  my  own;  the 
reproach  of  defective  taste  is  more  endurable  than 
the  reproach  of  insincerity.  Suppose  I  am  deficient  in 
the  requisite  knowledge  and  sensibility,  shall  I  be  less  so 
by  pretending  to  admire  what  really  gives  me  no  exqui- 
site enjoyment?  Will  the  pleasure  I  feel  in  pictures  be 
enhanced  because  other  men  consider  me  right  in  my 
admiration,  or  diminished  because  they  consider  me 
wrong? l 

The  opinion  of  the  majority  is  not  lightly  to  be  re- 
jected; but  neither  is  it  to  be  carelessly  echoed.  There  is 
something  noble  in  the  submission  to  a  great  renown, 

1  I  have  never  thoroughly  understood  the  painful  anxiety  of  people 
to  be  shielded  against  the  dishonouring  suspicion  of  not  rightly  appre- 
ciating pictures,  even  when  the  very  phrases  they  use  betray  their 
ignorance  and  insensibility.  Many  will  avow  their  indifference  to 
music,  and  almost  boast  of  their  ignorance  of  science;  will  sneer  at 
abstract  theories,  and  profess  the  most  tepid  interest  in  history,  who 
would  feel  it  an  unpardonable  insult  if  you  doubted  their  enthusiasm 
for  painting  and  the  "old  masters"  (by  them  secretly  identified  with 
the  brown  masters).  It  is  an  insincerity  fostered  by  general  pretence. 
Each  man  is  afraid  to  declare  his  real  sentiments  in  the  presence  of 
others  equally  timid.  Massive  authority  overawes  genuine  feeling.  — 
Author. 


66  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

which  makes  all  reverence  a  healthy  attitude  if  it  be 
genuine.  When  I  think  of  the  immense  fame  of  Raphael, 
and  of  how  many  high  and  delicate  minds  have  found 
exquisite  delight  even  in  the  'Transfiguration,'  and 
especially  when  I  recall  how  others  of  his  works  have 
affected  me,  it  is  natural  to  feel  some  diffidence  in  op- 
posing the  judgment  of  men  whose  studies  have  given 
them  the  best  means  of  forming  that  judgment  —  a 
diffidence  which  may  keep  me  silent  on  the  matter.  To 
start  with  the  assumption  that  you  are  right,  and  all 
who  oppose  you  are  fools,  cannot  be  a  safe  method.  Nor 
in  spite  of  a  conviction  that  much  of  the  admiration 
expressed  for  the  'Transfiguration'  is  lip-homage  and 
tradition,  ought  the  non-admiring  to  assume  that  all  of 
it  is  insincere.  It  is  quite  compatible  with  modesty  to 
be  perfectly  independent,  and  with  sincerity  to  be  re- 
spectful to  the  opinions  and  tastes  of  others.  If  you 
express  any  opinion,  you  are  bound  to  express  your  real 
opinion;  let  critics  and  admirers  utter  what  dithyrambs 
they  please.  Were  this  terror  of  not  being  thought  cor- 
rect in  taste  once  got  rid  of,  how  many  stereotyped 
judgments  on  books  and  pictures  would  be  broken  up! 
and  the  result  of  this  sincerity  would  be  some  really  val- 
uable criticism.  In  the  presence  of  Raphael's  'Sistine 
Madonna,' Titian's  'Peter  the  Martyr,'  or  Masaccio's 
great  frescoes  in  the  Brancacci  Chapel,  one  feels  as  if 
there  had  been  nothing  written  about  these  mighty 
works,  so  little  does  any  eulogy  discriminate  the  ele- 
ments of  their  profound  effects,  so  little  have  critics 
expressed  their  own  thoughts  and  feelings.  Yet  every 
day  some  wandering  connoisseur  stands  before  these 
pictures,  and  at  once,  without  waiting  to  let  them  sink 
deep  into  his  mind,  discovers  all  the  merits  which  are 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  67 

stereotyped  in  the  criticisms,  and  discovers  nothing  else. 
He  does  not  wait  to  feel,  he  is  impatient  to  range  himself 
with  men  of  taste;  he  discards  all  genuine  impressions, 
replacing  them  with  vague  conceptions  of  what  he  is 
expected  to  see. 

Inasmuch  as  success  must  be  determined  by  the  re- 
lation between  the  work  and  the  public,  the  sincerity 
which  leads  a  man  into  open  revolt  against  established 
opinions  may  seem  to  be  an  obstacle.  Indeed,  pub- 
lishers, critics,  and  friends  are  always  loud  in  their 
prophecies  against  originality  and  independence  on  this 
very  ground;  they  do  their  utmost  to  stifle  every  at- 
tempt at  novelty,  because  they  fix  their  eyes  upon  a 
hypothetical  public  taste,  and  think  that  only  what  has 
already  been  proved  successful  can  again  succeed;  for- 
getting that  whatever  has  once  been  done  need  not  be 
done  over  again,  and  forgetting  that  what  is  now  com- 
monplace was  once  originality.  There  are  cases  in  which 
a  disregard  of  public  opinion  will  inevitably  call  forth 
opprobrium  and  neglect;  but  there  is  no  case  in  which 
Sincerity  is  not  strength.  If  I  advance  new  views  in 
Philosophy  or  Theology,  I  cannot  expect  to  have  many 
adherents  among  minds  altogether  unprepared  for  such 
views;  yet  it  is  certain  that  even  those  who  most  fiercely 
oppose  me  will  recognise  the  power  of  my  voice  if  it  is 
not  a  mere  echo;  and  the  very  novelty  will  challenge 
attention,  and  at  last  gain  adherents  if  my  views  have 
any  real  insight.  At  any  rate  the  point  to  be  considered 
is  this,  that  whether  the  novel  views  excite  opposition 
or  applause,  the  one  condition  of  their  success  is  that 
they  be  believed  in  by  the  propagator.  The  public  can 
only  be  really  moved  by  what  is  genuine.  Even  an  error 
if  believed  in  will  have  greater  force  than  an  insincere 


68  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

truth.  Lip-advocacy  only  rouses  lip-homage.  It  is  belief 
which  gives  momentum. 

Nor  is  it  any  serious  objection  to  what  is  here  said, 
that  insincerity  and  timid  acquiescence  in  the  opinion 
and  tastes  of  the  public  do  often  gain  applause  and  tem- 
porary success.  Sanding  the  sugar  is  not  immediately 
unprofitable.  There  is  an  unpleasant  popularity  given 
to  falsehood  in  this  world  of  ours;  but  we  love  the  truth 
notwithstanding,  and  with  a  more  enduring  love.  Who 
does  not  know  what  it  is  to  listen  to  public  speakers 
pouring  forth  expressions  of  hollow  belief  and  sham  en- 
thusiasm, snatching  at  commonplaces  with  a  fervour  as 
of  faith,  emphasising  insincerities  as  if  to  make  up  by 
emphasis  what  is  wanting  in  feeling,  all  the  while  saying 
not  only  what  they  do  not  believe,  but  what  the  listeners 
know  they  do  not  believe,  and  what  the  listeners,  though 
they  roar  assent,  do  not  themselves  believe  —  a  tur- 
bulence of  sham,  the  very  noise  of  which  stuns  the  con- 
science? Is  such  an  orator  really  enviable,  although 
thunders  of  applause  may  have  greeted  his  efforts?  Is 
that  success,  although  the  newspapers  all  over  the  king- 
dom may  be  reporting  the  speech?  What  influence 
remains  when  the  noise  of  the  shouts  has  died  away? 
Whereas,  if  on  the  same  occasion  one  man  gave  utter- 
ance to  a  sincere  thought,  even  if  it  were  not  a  very  wise 
thought,  although  the  silence  of  the  public  — -  perhaps 
its  hisses — may  have  produced  an  impression  of  failure, 
yet  there  is  success,  for  the  thought  will  re-appear  and 
mingle  with  the  thoughts  of  men  to  be  adopted  or  com- 
bated by  them,  and  may  perhaps  in  a  few  years  mark 
out  the  speaker  as  a  man  better  worth  listening  to  than 
the  noisy  orator  whose  insincerity  was  so  much  cheered. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  69 

The  same  observation  applies  to  books.  An  author 
who  waits  upon  the  times,  and  utters  only  what  he 
thinks  the  world  will  like  to  hear,  who  sails  with  the 
stream,  admiring  everything  which  it  is  "correct  taste" 
to  admire,  despising  everything  which  has  not  yet  re- 
ceived that  Hallmark,  sneering  at  the  thoughts  of  a 
great  thinker  not  yet  accepted  as  such,  and  slavishly 
repeating  the  small  phrases  of  a  thinker  who  has  gained 
renown,  flippant  and  contemptuous  towards  opinions 
which  he  has  not  taken  the  trouble  to  understand,  and 
never  venturing  to  oppose  even  the  errors  of  men  in 
authority,  such  an  author  may  indeed  by  dint  of  a  cer- 
tain dexterity  in  assorting  the  mere  husks  of  opinion 
gain  the  applause  of  reviewers,  who  will  call  him  a 
thinker,  and  of  indolent  men  and  women  who  will  pro- 
nounce him  "so  clever";  but  triumphs  of  this  kind  are 
like  oratorical  triumphs  after  dinner.  Every  autumn 
the  earth  is  strewed  with  the  dead  leaves  of  such  vernal 
successes. 

iii.  Sincerity  as  Related  to  Vision 

I  would  not  have  the  reader  conclude  that  because  I 
advocate  plain-speaking  even  of  unpopular  views,  I 
mean  to  imply  that  originality  and  sincerity  are  always 
in  opposition  to  public  opinion.  There  are  many  points 
both  of  doctrine  and  feeling  in  which  the  world  is  not 
likely  to  be  wrong.  But  in  all  cases  it  is  desirable  that 
men  should  not  pretend  to  believe  opinions  which  they 
really  reject,  or  express  emotions  they  do  not  feel.  And 
this  rule  is  universal.  Even  truthful  and  modest  men 
will  sometimes  violate  the  rule  under  the  mistaken  idea 
of  being  eloquent  by  means  of  the  diction  of  eloquence. 
This  is  a  source  of  bad  Literature.    There  are  certain 


7o  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

views  in  Religion,  Ethics,  and  Politics,  which  readily 
lend  themselves  to  eloquence,  because  eloquent  men 
have  written  largely  on  them,  and  the  temptation  to 
secure  this  facile  effect  often  seduces  men  to  advocate 
these  views,  in  preference  to  views  they  really  see  to  be 
more  rational.  That  this  eloquence  at  second-hand  is 
but  feeble  in  its  effect,  does  not  restrain  others  from  re- 
peating it.  Experience  never  seems  to  teach  them  that 
grand  speech  comes  only  from  grand  thoughts,  passion- 
ate speech  from  passionate  emotions.  The  pomp  and 
roll  of  words,  the  trick  of  phrase,  the  rhythm  and  the 
gesture  of  an  orator,  may  all  be  imitated,  but  not  his 
eloquence.  No  man  was  ever  eloquent  by  trying  to  be 
eloquent,  but  only  by  being  so.  Trying  leads  to  the  vice 
of  "fine  writing"  —  the  plague-spot  of  Literature,  not 
only  unhealthy  in  itself,  and  vulgarising  the  grand  lan- 
guage which  should  be  reserved  for  great  thoughts,  but 
encouraging  that  tendency  to  select  only  those  views 
upon  which  a  spurious  enthusiasm  can  most  readily 
graft  the  representative  abstractions  and  stirring  sug- 
gestions which  will  move  public  applause.  The  "fine 
writer' '  will  always  prefer  the  opinion  which  is  striking 
to  the  opinion  which  is  true.  He  frames  his  sentences  by 
the  ear,  and  is  only  dissatisfied  with  them  when  their 
cadences  are  ill-distributed,  or  their  diction  is  too  famil- 
iar. It  seldom  occurs  to  him  that  a  sentence  should  ac- 
curately express  his  meaning  and  no  more;  indeed  there 
is  not  often  a  definite  meaning  to  be  expressed,  for  the 
thought  which  arose  vanished  while  he  tried  to  express 
it,  and  the  sentence,  instead  of  being  determined  by  and 
moulded  on  a  thought,  is  determined  by  some  verbal 
suggestion.  Open  any  book  or  periodical,  and  see  how 
frequently  the  writer  does  not,  cannot,  mean  what  he 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  71 

says;  and  you  will  observe  that  in  general  the  defect  does 
not  arise  from  any  poverty  in  our  language,  but  from 
the  habitual  carelessness  which  allows  expressions  to  be 
written  down  unchallenged  provided  they  are  suffi- 
ciently harmonious,  and  not  glaringly  inadequate. 

The  slapdash  insincerity  of  modern  style  entirely  sets 
at  nought  the  first  principle  of  writing,  which  is  ac- 
curacy. The  art  of  writing  is  not,  as  many  seem  to  imag- 
ine, the  art  of  bringing  fine  phrases  into  rhythmical 
order,  but  the  art  of  placing  before  the  reader  intelligible 
symbols  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  in  the  writer's 
mind.  Endeavour  to  be  faithful,  and  if  there  is  any 
beauty  in  your  thought,  your  style  will  be  beautiful;  if 
there  is  any  real  emotion  to  express,  the  expression  will 
be  moving.  Never  rouge  your  style.  Trust  to  your  na- 
tive pallor  rather  than  to  cosmetics.  Try  to  make  us  see 
what  you  see  and  to  feel  what  you  feel,  and  banish  from 
your  mind  whatever  phrases  others  may  have  used  to 
express  what  was  in  their  thoughts,  but  is  not  in  yours. 
Have  you  never  observed  what  a  slight  impression 
writers  have  produced,  in  spite  of  a  profusion  of  images, 
antitheses,  witty  epigrams,  and  rolling  periods,  whereas 
some  simpler  style,  altogether  wanting  in  such  "  brilliant 
passage,' '  has  gained  the  attention  and  respect  of  thou- 
sands? Whatever  is  stuck  on  as  ornament  affects  us  as 
ornament;  we  do  not  think  an  old  hag  young  and  hand- 
some because  the  jewels  flash  from  her  brow  and  bosom; 
if  we  envy  her  wealth,  we  do  not  admire  her  beauty. 

What  "fine  writing"  is  to  prosaists,  insincere  imagery 
is  to  poets:  it  is  introduced  for  effect,  not  used  as  expres- 
sion. To  the  real  poet  an  image  comes  spontaneously,  or 
if  it  comes  as  an  afterthought,  it  is  chosen  because  it  ex- 
presses his  meaning  and  helps  to  paint  the  picture  which 


72  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

is  in  his  mind,  not  because  it  is  beautiful  in  itself.  It  is  a 
symbol,  not  an  ornament.  Whether  the  image  rise 
slowly  before  the  mind  during  the  contemplation,  or  is 
seen  in  the  same  flash  which  discloses  the  picture,  in 
each  case  it  arises  by  natural  association,  and  is  seen,  not 
sought.  The  inferior  poet  is  dissatisfied  with  what  he 
sees,  and  casts  about  in  search  after  something  more 
striking.  He  does  not  wait  till  an  image  is  borne  in  upon 
the  tide  of  memory,  he  seeks  for  an  image  that  will  be 
picturesque;  and  being  without  the  delicate  selective 
instinct  which  guides  the  fine  artist,  he  generally  chooses 
something  which  we  feel  to  be  not  exactly  in  its  right 
place.   He  thus  — 

With  gold  and  silver  covers  every  part, 
And  hides  with  ornament  his  want  of  art. 

[Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism,  lines  295-296.] 

Be  true  to  your  own  soul,  and  do  not  try  to  express 
the  thought  of  another.  "If  some  people,"  says  Ruskin, 
"really  see  angels  where  others  see  only  empty  space, 
let  them  paint  the  angels:  only  let  not  anybody  else 
think  he  can  paint  an  angel  too,  on  any  calculated  prin- 
ciples of  the  angelic.  "1  Unhappily  this  is  precisely  what 
so  many  will  attempt,  inspired  by  the  success  of  the  an- 
gelic painter.     Nor  will  the  failure  of  others  warn  them. 

Whatever  is  sincerely  felt  or  believed,  whatever  forms 
part  of  the  imaginative  experience,  and  is  not  simply 
imitation  or  hearsay,  may  fitly  be  given  to  the  world, 
and  will  always  maintain  an  infinite  superiority  over 
imitative  splendour;  because  although  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  whatever  has  formed  part  of  the  artist's 
experience  must  be  impressive,  or  can  do  without  artis- 

1  Modern  Painters,  IV,  Chap.  II,  Sect.  2. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  73 

tic  presentation,  yet  his  artistic  power  will  always  be 
greater  over  his  own  material  than  over  another's.  Em- 
erson has  well  remarked  that  "those  facts,  words,  per- 
sons, which  dwell  in  a  man's  memory  without  his  being 
able  to  say  why,  remain,  because  they  have  a  relation  to 
him  not  less  real  tor  being  as  yet  unapprehended.  They 
are  symbols  of  value  to  him,  as  they  can  interpret  parts 
of  his  consciousness  which  he  would  vainly  seek  words 
for  in  the  conventional  images  of  books  and  other  minds. 
What  attracts  my  attention  shall  have  it,  as  I  will  go  to 
the  man  who  knocks  at  my  door,  while  a  thousand  per- 
sons, as  worthy,  go  by  it,  to  whom  I  give  no  regard.  It 
is  enough  that  these  particulars  speak  to  me.  A  few 
anecdotes,  a  few  traits  of  character,  manners,  face,  a  few 
incidents  have  an  emphasis  in  your  memory  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  apparent  significance,  if  you  measure 
them  by  the  ordinary  standards.  They  relate  to  your 
gift.  Let  them  have  their  weight,  and  do  not  reject 
them,  and  cast  about  for  illustrations  and  facts  more 
usual  in  literature."  l 

In  the  notes  to  the  last  edition  of  his  poems,  Words- 
worth specified  the  particular  occasions  which  furnished 
him  with  particular  images.  It  was  the  things  he  had 
seen  which  he  put  into  his  verses;  and  that  is  why  they 
affect  us.  It  matters  little  whether  the  poet  draws  his 
images  directly  from  present  experience,  or  indirectly 
from  memory  —  whether  the  sight  of  the  slow-sailing 
swan,  that  "  floats  double,  swan  and  shadow  "2  be  at  once 
transferred  to  the  scene  of  the  poem  he  is  writing,  or 
come  back  to  him  in  after  years  to  complete  some  pic- 
ture in  his  mind;  enough  that  the  image  be  suggested, 
and  not  sought. 

1  Essay  on  Spiritual  Laws.  2  Yarrow  Unvisited. 


74  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

The  sentence  from  Ruskin,  quoted  just  now,  will 
guard  against  the  misconception  that  a  writer,  because 
told  to  rely  on  his  own  experience,  is  enjoined  to  forego 
the  glory  and  delight  of  creation  even  of  fantastic  types. 
He  is  only  told  never  to  pretend  to  see  what  he  has  not 
seen.  He  is  urged  to  follow  Imagination  in  her  most 
erratic  course,  though  like  a  will-o'-wisp  she  lead  over 
marsh  and  fen  away  from  the  haunts  of  mortals;  but  not 
to  pretend  that  he  is  following  a  will-o'-wisp  when  his  va- 
grant fancy  never  was  allured  by  one.  It  is  idle  to  paint 
fairies  and  goblins  unless  you  have  a  genuine  vision  of 
them  which  forces  you  to  paint  them.  They  are  poetical 
objects,  but  only  to  poetic  minds.  "Be  a  plain  topog- 
rapher if  you  possibly  can,"  says  Ruskin,  "if  Nature 
meant  you  to  be  anything  else,  she  will  force  you  to  it; 
but  never  try  to  be  a  prophet;  go  on  quietly  with  your 
hard  camp-work,  and  the  spirit  will  come  to  you  in  the 
camp,  as  it  did  to  Eldad  and  Medad,  if  you  are  ap- 
pointed to  have  it. "  1  Yes:  if  you  are  appointed  to  have 
it;  if  your  faculties  are  such  that  this  high  success  is 
possible,  it  will  come,  provided  the  faculties  are  em- 
ployed with  sincerity.  Otherwise  it  cannot  come.  No 
insincere  effort  can  secure  it. 

If  the  advice  I  give  to  reject  every  insincerity  in  writ- 
ing seem  cruel,  because  it  robs  the  writer  of  so  many  of 
his  effects  —  if  it  seem  disheartening  to  earnestly  warn 
a  man  not  to  try  to  be  eloquent,  but  only  to  be  eloquent 
when  his  thoughts  move  with  an  impassioned  largo  —  if 
throwing  a  writer  back  upon  his  naked  faculty  seem  es- 
pecially distasteful  to  those  who  have  a  painful  misgiving 
that  their  faculty  is  small,  and  that  the  uttermost  of 
their  own   power  would   be   far  from   impressive,  my 

1  Modern  Painters,  IV,  Chap.  II,  Sect.  4. 


GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  75 

answer  is  that  I  have  no  hope  of  dissuading  feeble  writ- 
ers from  the  practice  of  insincerity,  but  as  under  no  cir- 
cumstances can  they  become  good  writers  and  achieve 
success,  my  analysis  has  no  reference  to  them,  my  advice 
has  no  aim  at  them. 

It  is  to  the  young  and  strong,  to  the  ambitious  and  the 
earnest,  that  my  words  are  addressed.  It  is  to  wipe  the 
film  from  their  eyes,  and  make  them  see,  as  they  will  see 
directly  the  truth  is  placed  before  them,  how  easily  we 
are  all  seduced  into  greater  or  less  insincerity  of  thought, 
of  feeling,  and  of  style,  either  by  reliance  on  other  writ- 
ers, from  whom  we  catch  the  trick  of  thought  and  turn 
of  phrase,  or  from  some  preconceived  view  of  what  the 
public  will  prefer.  It  is  to  the  young  and  strong  I  say: 
Watch  vigilantly  every  phrase  you  write,  and  assure 
yourself  that  it  expresses  what  you  mean;  watch  vigi- 
lantly every  thought  you  express,  and  assure  yourself 
that  it  is  yours,  not  another's;  you  may  share  it  with 
another,  but  you  must  not  adopt  it  from  him  for  the 
nonce.  Of  course,  if  you  are  writing  humourously  or 
dramatically,  you  will  not  be  expected  to  write  your  own 
serious  opinions.  Humour  may  take  its  utmost  licence, 
yet  be  sincere.  The  dramatic  genius  may  incarnate  it- 
self in  a  hundred  shapes,  yet  in  each  it  will  speak  what  it 
feels  to  be  the  truth.  If  you  are  imaginatively  represent- 
ing the  feelings  of  another,  as  in  some  playful  exaggera- 
tion or  some  dramatic  personation,  the  truth  required 
of  you  is  imaginative  truth,  not  your  personal  views  and 
feelings.  But  when  you  write  in  your  own  person  you 
must  be  rigidly  veracious,  neither  pretending  to  admire 
what  you  do  not  admire,  or  to  despise  what  in  secret  you 
rather  like,  nor  surcharging  your  admiration  and  enthu- 
siasm to  bring  you  into  unison  with  the  public  chorus. 


j6  SUCCESS  IN  LITERATURE 

This  vigilance  may  render  Literature  more  laborious; 
but  no  one  ever  supposed  that  success  was  to  be  had  on 
easy  terms;  and  if  you  only  write  one  sincere  page  where 
you  might  have  written  twenty  insincere  pages,  the  one 
page  is  worth  writing  —  it  is  Literature. 

Sincerity  is  not  only  effective  and  honourable,  it  is 
also  much  less  difficult  than  is  commonly  supposed.  To 
take  a  trifling  example:  If  for  some  reason  I  cannot,  or 
do  not,  choose  to  verify  a  quotation  which  may  be  useful 
to  my  purpose,  what  is  to  prevent  my  saying  that  the 
quotation  is  taken  at  second-hand?  It  is  true,  if  my 
quotations  are  for  the  most  part  second-hand  and  are 
acknowledged  as  such,  my  erudition  will  appear  scanty. 
But  it  will  only  appear  what  it  is.  Why  should  I  pretend 
to  an  erudition  which  is  not  mine?  Sincerity  forbids  it. 
Prudence  whispers  that  the  pretence  is,  after  all,  vain, 
because  those,  and  those  alone,  who  can  rightly  estimate 
erudition  will  infallibly  detect  my  pretence,  whereas 
those  whom  I  have  deceived  were  not  worth  deceiving. 
Yet  in  spite  of  Sincerity  and  Prudence,  how  shamelessly 
men  compile  second-hand  references,  and  display  in  bor- 
rowed foot-notes  a  pretence  of  labour  and  of  accuracy! 
I  mention  this  merely  to  show  how,  even  in  the  humbler 
class  of  compilers,  the  Principle  of  Sincerity  may  find  fit 
illustrations,  and  how  honest  work,  even  in  references, 
belongs  to  the  same  category  as  honest  work  in  philos- 
ophy or  poetry. 


THE  CARDINAL  RULES 
OF  RHETORIC  i 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

i 803-1 882 

This  passage  from  Emerson  is  a  part  of  his  incomplete  essay 
entitled  "Art  and  Criticism."  The  essay  was  originally  de- 
livered as  "  the  fourth  lecture  in  a  course  given  in  the  spring  of 
1859,  at  the  Freeman  Place  Chapel  in  Boston." 

Many  readers  of  Emerson  who  are  amazed  at  the  ease  with 
which  the  popular  mind  is  able  to  grasp  his  lofty  conceptions 
will  find  in  this  essay  an  adequate  explanation.  He  sought  the 
sturdy,  living  vocabulary  of  the  unsophisticated  middle- 
classes.  Dr.  Edward  Waldo  Emerson,  in  commenting  upon  his 
father's  preference  for  homely  strength  in  language,  remarks: 
"His  hearers  at  the  church  in  East  Lexington  were  simple,  but 
in  confessing  this,  they  said  they  could  understand  Mr.  Emer- 
son. Most  of  his  lectures  for  forty  years  thereafter  were 
'  tried  on,'  as  he  said,  on  audiences  from  farm  and  shop  in  the 
lyceums  of  New  England  towns  or  on  enterprising  but  un- 
cultivated settlers  of '  the  West.'  He  would  not  '  talk  down,' 
but  made  it  his  business  to  try  to  give  them  his  best  thought  in 
vigorous,  simple  words,  with  homely  illustration  or  classic 
anecdote." 

LITERATURE  is  but  a  poor  trick,  you  will  say,  when 
J  it  busies  itself  to  make  words  pass  for  things;  and 
yet  I  am  far  from  thinking  this  subordinate  service  un- 
important. The  secondary  services  of  literature  may 
be  classed  under  the  name  of  Rhetoric,  and  are  quite  as 
important  in  letters  as  iron  is  in  war.  An  enumeration 
of  the  few  principal  weapons  of  the  poet  or  writer  will 
at  once  suggest  their  value. 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of,  and  by  special  arrangement  with, 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 

77 


78  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

Writing  is  che  greatest  of  arts,  the  subtilest,  and 
of  most  miraculous  effect;  and  to  it  the  education  is 
costliest.  Oi  the  writer  the  choicest  influences  are 
concentrated,  —  nothing  that  does  not  go  to  his  costly 
equipment:  a  war,  an  earthquake,  revival  of  letters,  the 
new  dispensation  by  Jesus,  or  by  Angels;  Heaven,  Hell, 
power,  science,  the  Neant,  exist  to  him  as  colors  for  his 
brush. 

In  this  art  modern  society  has  introduced  a  new  ele- 
ment, by  introducing  a  new  audience.  The  decline  of 
the  privileged  orders,  all  over  the  world;  the  advance  of 
the  Third  Estate;  the  transformation  of  the  laborer  into 
reader  and  writer  has  compelled  the  learned  and  the 
thinkers  to  address  them.  Chiefly  in  this  country,  the 
common  school  has  added  two  or  three  audiences ; 
once,  we  had  only  the  boxes;  now,  the  galleries  and  the 
pit. 

There  is,  in  every  nation,  a  style  which  never  becomes 
obsolete,  a  certain  mode  of  phraseology  so  consonant 
and  congenial  to  the  analogy  and  principles  of  its  re- 
spective language  as  to  remain  settled  and  unaltered. 
This  style  is  probably  to  be  sought  in  the  common  inter- 
course of  life,  among  those  who  speak  only  to  be  under- 
stood, without  ambition  of  elegance.  The  polite  are 
always  catching  modish  innovations,  and  the  learned 
depart  from  established  forms  of  speech,  in  hope  of  find- 
ing or  making  better;  those  who  wish  for  distinction 
forsake  the  vulgar,  when  the  vulgar  is  right;  but  there 
is  a  conversation  above  grossness  and  below  refinement 
where  prosperity  resides,  and  where  Shakspeare  seems 
to  have  gathered  his  comic  dialogue.  Goethe  valued 
himself  not  on  his  learning  or  eccentric  flights,  but  that 
he  knew  how  to  write  German.   And  many  of  his  poems 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  79 

are  so  idiomatic,  so  strongly  rooted  in  the  German  soil, 
that  they  are  the  terror  of  translators,  who  say  they  can- 
not be  rendered  into  any  other  language  without  loss  of 
vigor,  as  we  say  of  any  darling  passage  of  our  own  mas- 
ters. "Le  style  c'est  l'homme, "  said  Buffon;  and 
Goethe  said,  "Poetry  here,  poetry  there,  I  have  learned 
to  speak  German."  And  when  I  read  of  various  extra- 
ordinary polyglots,  self-made  or  college-made,  who  can 
understand  fifty  languages,  I  answer  that  I  shall  be  glad 
and  surprised  to  find  that  they  know  one.  For  if  I  were 
asked  how  many  masters  of  English  idiom  I  know,  I 
shall  be  perplexed  to  count  five. 

Ought  not  the  scholar  to  convey  his  meaning  in  terms 
as  short  and  strong  as  the  smith  and  the  drover  use  to 
convey  theirs?  You  know  the  history  of  the  eminent 
English  writer  on  gypsies,  George  Borrow;  he  had  one 
clear  perception,  that  the  key  to  every  country  was 
command  of  the  language  of  the  common  people.  He 
therefore  mastered  the  patois  of  the  gypsies,  called  Ro- 
many, which  is  spoken  by  them  in  all  countries  where 
they  wander,  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa.  Yet  much  of  the 
raw  material  of  the  street-talk  is  absolutely  untranslat- 
able into  print, and  one  must  learn  from  Burke  how  to  be 
severe  without  being  unparliamentary.  Rabelais  and 
Montaigne  are  masters  of  this  Romany,  but  cannot  be 
read  aloud,  and  so  far  fall  short.  Whitman  is  our  Ameri- 
can master,  but  has  not  got  out  of  the  Fire-Club  and 
gained  the  entree  of  the  sitting-rooms.  Bacon,  if  "he 
could  out-cant  a  London  chirurgeon,"  must  have  pos- 
sessed the  Romany  under  his  brocade  robes.  Luther  said, 
"I  preach  coarsely;  that  giveth  content  to  all.  Hebrew, 
Greek  and  Latin  I  spare,  until  we  learned  ones  come 
together,  and  then  we  make  it  so  curled  and  finical  that 


80  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

God  himself  wondereth  at  us."  He  who  would  be  pow- 
erful must  have  the  terrible  gift  of  familiarity, —  Mira- 
beau,  Chatham,  Fox,  Burke,  O'Connell,  Patrick  Henry; 
and  among  writers,  Swift,  DeFoe  and  Carlyle. 

Look  at  this  forlorn  caravan  of  travellers  who  wander 
over  Europe  dumb  —  never  exchange  a  word,  in  the 
mother  tongue  of  either,  with  prince  or  peasant;  but 
condemned  to  the  company  of  a  courier  and  of  the  pa- 
drone when  they  cannot  take  refuge  in  the  society  of 
countrymen.  A  well-chosen  series  of  stereoscopic  views 
would  have  served  a  better  purpose,  which  they  can  ex- 
plore at  home,  sauced  with  joyful  discourse  and  with 
reference  to  all  the  books  in  your  library. 

Speak  with  the  vulgar,  think  with  the  wise.  See  how 
Plato  managed  it,  with  an  imagination  so  gorgeous,  and 
a  taste  so  patrician,  that  Jove,  if  he  descended,  was  to 
speak  in  his  style.  Into  the  exquisite  refinement  of  his 
Academy,  he  introduces  the  low-born  Socrates,  relieving 
the  purple  diction  by  his  perverse  talk,  his  gallipots,  and 
cook,  and  trencher,  and  cart-wheels  —  and  steadily  kept 
this  coarseness  to  flavor  a  dish  else  too  luscious.  Every- 
body knows  the  points  in  which  the  mob  has  the  advan- 
tage of  the  Academy,  and  all  able  men  have  known  how 
to  import-  the  petulance  of  the  street  into  correct  dis- 
course. 

The  next  virtue  of  rhetoric  is  compression,  the  science 
of  omitting,  which  makes  good  the  old  verse  of  Hesiod, 
"Fools,  they  did  not  know  that  half  was  better  than  the 
whole. "  The  French  have  a  neat  phrase,  that  the  secret 
of  boring  you  is  that  of  telling  all, —  "Le  secret  d'en- 
nuyer  est  celui  de  tout  dire";  which  we  translate  short, 
"Touch  and  go. "  The  silences,  pauses,  of  an  orator  are 
as  telling  as  his  words.  What  the  poet  omits  exalts  every 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  81 

syllable  that  he  writes.1  In  good  hands  it  will  never  be- 
come sterility.  A  good  writer  must  convey  the  feeling 
of  a  flamboyant  witness,  and  at  the  same  time  of  chemic 
selection  —  as  if  in  his  densest  period  was  no  cramp, 
but  room  to  turn  a  chariot  and  horses  between  his  valid 
words.  There  is  hardly  danger  in  America  of  excess  of 
condensation;  there  must  be  no  cramp  insufficiency,  but 
the  superfluous  must  be  omitted.  In  the  Hindoo  my- 
thology, "Viswaharman"  placed  the  sun  on  his  lathe 
to  grind  off  some  of  his  effulgence,  and  in  this  manner 
reduced  it  to  an  eighth — more  was  inseparable.   .    .    . 

In  architecture  the  beauty  is  increased  in  the  degree 
in  which  the  material  is  safely  diminished;  as  when  you 
break  up  a  prose  wall,  and  leave  all  the  strength  in  the 
poetry  of  columns.  As  soon  as  you  read  aloud,  you  will 
find  what  sentences  drag.  Blot  them  out,  and  read 
again,  you  will  find  the  words  that  drag.  'T  is  like  a 
pebble  inserted  in  a  mosaic.  Resolute  blotting  rids  you 
of  all  those  phrases  that  sound  like  something  and  mean 
nothing,  with  which  scriptural  forms  play  a  large  part. 
Never  say,  "I  beg  not  to  be  misunderstood."  It  is  only 
graceful  in  the  case  when  you  are  afraid  that  what  is 
called  a  better  meaning  will  be  taken,  and  you  wish  to 
insist  on  a  worse;  a  man  has  a  right  to  pass,  like  Dean 
Swift,  for  a  worse  man  than  he  is,  but  not  for  a  better. 

And  I  sometimes  wish  that  the  Board  of  Education 
might  carry  out  the  project  of  a  college  for  graduates  of 
our  universities,  to  which  editors  and  members  of  Con- 

1  Walt  Whitman  in  one  of  his  prose  jottings  has  this:  "At  its  best, 
poetic  lore  is  like  what  may  be  heard  of  conversation  in  the  dusk, 
from  speakers  far  or  hid,  of  which  we  get  only  a  few  broken  murmurs. 
What  is  not  gathered  is  far  more  —  perhaps  the  main  thing."  — 
Editor. 


82  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

gress  and  writers  of  books  might  repair,  and  learn  to 
sink  what  we  could  best  spare  of  our  words;  to  gazette 
those  Americanisms  which  offend  us  in  all  journals. 
Some  of  these  are  odious.  Some  as  an  adverb  —  "  reeled 
some";  considerable  as  an  adverb  for  much;  "quite  a 
number";  slim  for  bad;  the  adjective  graphic,  which 
means  what  is  written  —  graphic  arts  and  oral  arts,  arts 
of  writing,  and  arts  of  speech  and  song — ■  but  is  used  as 
if  it  meant  descriptive:  "Minerva's  graphic  thread."  A 
Mr.  Randall,  M.C.,  who  appeared  before  the  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  subject  of  the  Ameri- 
can mode  of  closing  a  debate,  said,  "  that  the  one-hour 
rule  worked  well;  made  the  debate  short  and  graphic." 
'T  is  the  worst  praise  you  can  give  a  speech  that  it  is  as 
if  written. 

But  these  cardinal  rules  of  rhetoric  find  best  examples 
in  the  great  masters,  and  are  main  sources  of  the  delight 
they  give.  Shakspeare  might  be  studied  for  his  dexterity 
in  the  use  of  these  weapons,  if  it  were  not  for  his  heroic 
strength.  There  is  no  such  master  of  low  style  as  he,  and 
therefore  none  can  securely  soar  so  high.  I  do  not  mean 
that  he  delights  in  comedy,  exults  in  bringing  the  street 
itself,  uproarious  with  laughter  and  animal  joy,  on  to 
the  scene,  with  Falstaff  and  Touchstone  and  Trinculo 
and  the  fools;  but  that  in  the  conduct  of  the  play,  and 
the  speech  of  the  heroes,  he  keeps  the  level  tone  which  is 
the  tone  of  high  and  low  alike,  and  most  widely  under- 
stood. A  man  of  experience  altogether,  his  very  sonnets 
are  as  solid  and  close  to  facts  as  the  Banker's  Gazette; 
and  the  only  check  on  the  detail  of  each  of  his  portraits 
is  his  own  universality,  which  made  bias  or  fixed  ideas 
impossible  —  his  impartiality  is  like  a  sunbeam. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  8 


j 


His  fun  is  as  wise  as  his  earnest,  its  foundations  are 
below  the  frost.  His  muse  is  moral  simply  from  its 
depth,  and  I  value  the  intermixture  of  the  common  and 
the  transcendental  as  in  Nature.  One  would  say  Shak- 
speare  must  have  been  a  thousand  years  old  when  he 
wrote  his  first  piece;  so  thoroughly  is  his  thought  famil- 
iar to  him,  so  solidly  worded,  as  if  it  were  already  a  prov- 
erb, and  not  only  hereafter  to  become  one.  Well,  that 
millennium  is  really  only  a  little  acceleration  in  his  proc- 
ess of  thought;  his  loom  is  better  toothed,  cranked  and 
pedalled  than  other  people's,  and  he  can  turn  off  a  hun- 
dred yards  to  their  one.  Shakspeare  is  nothing  but  a 
large  utterance.  We  cannot  find  that  anything  in  his 
age  was  more  worth  expression  than  anything  in  ours; 
nor  give  any  account  of  his  existence,  but  only  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  wonderful  symbolizer  and  expressor, 
who  has  no  rival  in  all  ages  and  who  has  thrown  an  acci- 
dental lustre  over  his  time  and  subject. 

My  friend  thinks  the  reason  why  the  French  mind  is  so 
shallow,  and  still  to  seek,  running  into  vagaries  and  blind 
alleys,  is  because  they  do  not  read  Shakspeare;  whilst 
the  English  and  Germans,  who  read  Shakspeare  and 
the  Bible,  have  a  great  onward  march.  Shakspeare 
would  have  sufficed  for  the  culture  of  a  nation  for  vast 
periods.  The  Chinese  have  got  on  so  long  with  their 
solitary  Confucius  and  Mencius;  the  Arabs  with  their 
Mahomet;  the  Scandinavians  with  their  Snorre  Sturle- 
son;  and  if  the  English  island  had  been  larger  and  the 
Straits  of  Dover  wider,  to  keep  it  at  pleasure  a  little  out 
of  the  imbroglio  of  Europe,  they  might  have  managed 
to  feed  on  Shakspeare  for  some  ages  yet;  as  the  camel 
in  the  desert  is  fed  by  his  humps,  in  long  absence  from 
food. 


84  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

Montaigne  must  have  the  credit  of  giving  to  litera- 
ture that  which  we  listen  for  in  bar-rooms,  the  low 
speech,  —  words  and  phrases  that  no  scholar  coined; 
street-cries  and  war-cries;  words  of  the  boatman,  the 
farmer  and  the  lord;  that  have  neatness  and  necessity, 
through  their  use  in  the  vocabulary  of  work  and  appe- 
tite, like  the  pebbles  which  the  incessant  attrition  of  the 
sea  has  rounded.  Every  historic  autobiographic  trait 
authenticating  the  man  adds  to  the  value  of  the  book. 
We  can't  afford  to  take  the  horse  out  of  the  Essays;  it 
would  take  the  rider  too. 

Herrick  is  a  remarkable  example  of  the  low  style.  He 
is,  therefore,  a  good  example  of  the  modernness  of  an  old 
English  writer.  So  Latimer,  so  Chaucer,  so  the  Bible. 
He  found  his  subject  where  he  stood,  between  his  feet, 
in  his  house,  pantry,  barn,  poultry-yard,  in  his  village, 
neighbors'  gossip  and  scandal.  Like  Montaigne  in  this, 
that  his  subject  cost  him  nothing,  and  he  knew  what  he 
spake  of,  and  did  not  write  up  to  it,  but  could  write 
down  (a  main  secret),  and  took  his  level,  so  that  he  had 
all  his  strength,  the  easiness  of  strength;  he  took  what 
he  knew,  and  "took  it  easy,"  as  we  say.  The  Germans 
praise  in  Goethe  the  comfortable  stoutness.  Herrick's 
merit  is  the  simplicity  and  manliness  of  his  utterance, 
and,  rarely,  the  weight  of  his  sentence.  He  has,  and 
knows  that  he  has,  a  noble,  idiomatic  English,  a  perfect, 
plain  style,  from  which  he  can  soar  to  a  fine,  lyric  deli- 
cacy, or  descend  to  coarsest  sarcasm,  without  losing  his 
firm  footing.  This  flower  of  speech  is  accompanied  with 
an  assurance  of  fame.  We  have  an  artist  who  in  this 
merit  of  which  I  speak  will  easily  cope  with  these  celeb- 
rities. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  85 

In  Carlyle  as  in  Byron  one  is  more  struck  with  the 
rhetoric  than  with  the  matter.  He  has  manly  superi- 
ority rather  than  intellectuality,  and  so  makes  hard 
hits  all  the  time.  There's  more  character  than  intellect 
in  every  sentence  —  herein  strongly  resembling  Samuel 
Johnson.  The  best  service  Carlyle  has  rendered  is  to 
rhetoric,  or  art  of  writing.  In  his  books  the  vicious  con- 
ventions of  writing  are  all  dropped.  You  have  no  board 
interposed  between  you  and  the  writer's  mind,  but  he 
talks  flexibly,  now  high,  now  low,  in  loud  emphasis,  in 
undertones,  then  laughs  till  the  walls  ring,  then  calmly 
moderates,  then  hints,  or  raises  an  eyebrow.  He  has 
gone  nigher  to  the  wind  than  any  other  craft. 

Carlyle,  with  his  inimitable  ways  of  saying  the  thing, 
is  next  best  to  the  inventor  of  the  thing,  and  I  think  of 
him  when  I  read  the  famous  inscription  on  the  pyramid, 
"I  King  Saib  built  this  pyramid.  I,  when  I  had  built  it, 
covered  it  with  satin.  Let  him  who  cometh  after  me, 
and  says  he  is  equal  to  me,  cover  it  with  mats."  What 
he  has  said  shall  be  proverb,  nobody  shall  be  able  to  say 
it  otherwise.  No  book  can  any  longer  be  tolerable  in  the 
old  husky  Neal-on-the-Puritans  model.  In  short,  I 
think  the  revolution  wrought  by  Carlyle  is  precisely  par- 
allel to  that  going  forward  in  picture,  by  the  stereoscope. 
Until  history  is  interesting,  it  is  not  yet  written. 

Here  has  come  into  the  country,  three  months  ago, 
a  History  of  Friedrich,  infinitely  the  wittiest  book  that 
ever  was  written;  a  book  that,  one  would  think,  the  Eng- 
lish people  would  rise  up  in  a  mass  to  thank  him  for,  by 
cordial  acclamation,  and  signify,  by  crowning  him  with 
chaplet  of  oak-leaves,  their  joy  that  such  a  head  existed 
among    them,    and    sympathizing    and    much-reading 


86  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

America  would  make  a  new  treaty  or  send  a  minister 
extraordinary  to  offer  congratulations  of  honoring  de- 
light to  England  in  acknowledgment  of  such  a  donation; 
a  book  holding  so  many  memorable  and  heroic  facts, 
working  directly  on  practice;  with  new  heroes,  things 
unvoiced  before  —  the  German  Plutarch,  now  that  we 
have  exhausted  the  Greek  and  Roman  and  British  biog- 
raphy —  with  a  range,  too,  of  thought  and  wisdom,  so 
large,  so  colloquially  elastic,  that  we  not  so  much  read 
a  stereotype  page  as  we  see  the  eyes  of  the  writer  look- 
ing into  ours,  whilst  he  is  humming  and  chuckling,  with 
undertones,  and  trumpet-tones,  and  shrugs,  and  long 
commanding  glances,  stereoscoping  every  figure  that 
passes,  and  every  hill,  river,  wood,  hummock  and  pebble 
in  the  long  perspective,  with  its  wonderful  mnemonics, 
whereby  great  and  insignificant  men  are  ineffaceably 
marked  and  medalled  in  the  memory  by  what  they  were, 
had  and  did;  and  withal  a  book  that  is  a  judgment-day 
for  its  moral  verdict  on  the  men  and  nations  and  man- 
ners of  modern  times.  And  this  book  makes  no  noise. 
I  have  hardly  seen  a  notice  of  it  in  any  newspaper  or 
journal,  and  you  would  think  there  was  no  such  book.  I 
am  not  aware  that  Mr.  Buchanan  has  sent  a  special  mes- 
senger to  Great  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea;  but  the  secret 
interior  wits  and  hearts  of  men  take  note  of  it,  not  the 
less  surely.  They  have  said  nothing  lately  in  praise  of 
the  air,  or  of  fire,  or  of  the  blessing  of  love,  and  yet,  I 
suppose,  they  are  sensible  of  these,  and  not  less  of  this 
Book,  which  is  like  these. 

After  Low  Style  and  Compression  what  the  books  call 
Metonymy  is  a  principal  power  of  rhetoric.  It  means, 
using  one  work  or  image  for  another.  It  is  a  low  ideal- 
ism.   Idealism  regards  the  world  as  symbolic,  and  all 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  87 

these  symbols  or  forms  as  fugitive  and  convertible  ex- 
pressions. The  power  of  the  poet  is  in  controlling  these 
symbols;  in  using  every  fact  in  Nature,  however  great 
and  stable,  as  a  fluent  symbol,  and  in  measuring  his 
strength  by  the  facility  with  which  he  makes  the  mood 
of  mind  give  its  color  to  things.  The  world,  history,  the 
powers  of  Nature,  —  he  can  make  them  speak  what 
sense  he  will. 

All  conversation,  as  all  literature,  appears  to  me  the 
pleasure  of  rhetoric,  or,  I  may  say,  of  metonymy .  "To 
make  of  motes  mountains,  and  of  mountains  motes," 
Isocrates  said,"  was  the  orator's  office."  Well,  that  is 
what  poetry  and  thinking  do.  Whatever  new  object 
we  see,  we  perceive  to  be  only  a  new  version  of  our 
familiar  experience,  and  we  set  about  translating  it  at 
once  into  our  parallel  facts.  We  have  hereby  our  vo- 
cabulary. 

Everything  has  two  handles.  Pindar  when  the  victor 
in  a  race  by  mules  offered  him  a  trifling  present,  pre- 
tended to  be  hurt  at  thought  of  writing  on  demi-asses. 
When,  however,  he  offered  a  sufficient  present,  he  com- 
posed the  poem :  — 

Hail,  daughters  of  the  tempest-footed  horse, 
That  skims  like  wind  along  the  course. 

That  was  the  other  handle.  I  passed  at  one  time 
through  a  place  called  New  City,  then  supposed,  like 
each  of  a  hundred  others,  to  be  destined  to  greatness. 
I  fell  in  with  one  of  the  founders  who  showed  its  advan- 
tages and  its  river  and  port  and  the  capabilities:  "Sixty 
houses,  sir,  were  built  in  a  night,  like  tents. "  After 
Chicago  had  secured  the  confluence  of  the  railroads  to 
itself,  I  chanced  to  meet  my  founder  again,  but  now  re- 


88  RULES  OF  RHETORIC 

moved  to  Chicago.  He  had  transferred  to  that  city  the 
magnificent  dreams  which  he  had  once  communicated 
to  me,  and  no  longer  remembered  his  first  emporium. 
"Where  is  the  town?  Was  there  not,"  I  asked,  "a  river 
and  a  harbor  there?"  "Oh  yes,  there  was  a  guzzle  out 
of  a  sand-bank."  "And  the  town?"  "There  are  still  the 
sixty  houses,  but  when  I  passed  it,  one  owl  was  the  only 
inhabitant."  When  Samuel  Dexter,  long  since,  argued 
the  claims  of  South  Boston  Bridge,  he  had  to  meet  loud 
complaints  of  the  shutting  out  of  the  coasting-trade  by 
the  proposed  improvements.  "Now,"  said  he,  "I  come 
to  the  grand  charge  that  we  have  obstructed  the  com- 
merce and  navigation  of  Roxbury  Ditch. "  'T  is  very 
easy  to  call  the  gracious  spring  "poor  goody  herb-wife," 
or  to  represent  the  farm,  which  stands  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  gravest  needs,  as  a  poor  trifle  of  pea-vines, 
turnips  and  hen-roosts.  Everything  has  two  handles. 
Shakspeare  says,  "A  plague  of  opinion;  a  man  can  wear 
it  on  both  sides,  like  a  leather  jerkin." 

Here  is  my  friend  E.,  the  model  of  opinionists.  He  is 
the  April  day  incarnated  and  walking,  soft  sunshine  and 
hailstones,  sour  east  wind  and  flowery  southwest  —  al- 
ternating, and  each  sovereign,  and  painting  all  things  its 
own  color.  He  has  it  all  his  own  way.  He  complains  of 
Nature,  —  too  many  leaves,  too  windy  and  grassy,  and 
I  suppose  the  birds  are  too  feathery  and  the  horses  too 
leggy.  He  thinks  Egypt  a  humbug,  and  Palestine  used 
up,  and  England  a  flash  in  the  pan;  and  that  the  only 
art  is  landscape-painting.  But  when  we  came,  in  the 
woods,  to  a  clump  of  goldenrod,  —  "Ah!"  he  says, 
"here  they  are!  these  things  consume  a  great  deal  of 
time.  I  don't  know  but  they  are  of  more  importance 
than  any  other  of  our  investments."    Well,  this  is  the 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  89 

game  that  goes  on  every  day  in  all  companies;  this  is  the 
ball  that  is  tossed  in  every  court  of  law,  in  every  legisla- 
ture and  in  literature,  and  in  the  history  of  every  mind 
by  sovereignty  of  thought  to  make  facts  and  men  obey 
our  present  humor  or  belief. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  ECONOMY 
APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

HERBERT  SPENCER 

i 820-1 903 

The  following  pages  from  Spencer  constitute  the  first  and 
probably  the  most  important  section  of  his  essay  on  "The 
Philosophy  of  Style,"  which  was  originally  published  in  the 
Westminster  Review,  October,  1852.  Since  then  the  entire 
essay  has  been  reprinted  frequently.  Professor  F.  N.  Scott 
has  edited  it  for  classroom  use  (Allyn  and  Bacon,  Boston). 

Spencer  insisted  that  his  Principle  of  Economy  was  the  re- 
sult of  his  own  unhampered  thinking;  but  there  is  evidence  to 
show  that  his  work  was  not  so  wholly  independent  of  other 
writers  on  the  subject  as  he  would  have  one  believe.  He  bor- 
rowed somewhat  freely  —  even  from  the  very  rhetoricians 
whose  work  he  lamented  as  being  unorganized.  (See,  for 
example,  Mr.  George  B.  Denton's  article  on  "Herbert  Spencer 
and  the  Rhetoricians"  in  the  Publications  of  the  Modern 
Language  Association  of  America,  March,  1919.)  In  spite  of 
the  fact,  however,  that  he  was  not  quite  so  independent  of  the 
influence  of  others  as  he  professed  to  be,  he  formulated  a 
principle  that  had  hitherto  been  incompletely  or  imperfectly 
expressed. 

COMMENTING  on  the  seeming  incongruity  between 
his  father's  argumentative  powers  and  his  ignorance 
of  formal  logic,  Tristram  Shandy  says :  "  It  was  a  matter 
of  just  wonder  with  my  worthy  tutor,  and  two  or  three 
fellows  of  that  learned  society,  that  a  man  who  knew 
not  so  much  as  the  names  of  his  tools,  should  be  able  to 
work  after  that  fashion  with  them."  Sterne's  intended 
implication  that  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  reason- 
ing neither  makes,  nor  is  essential  to,  a  good  reasoner, 
is  doubtless  true.  Thus,  too,  is  it  with  grammar.  As  Dr. 


HERBERT  SPENCER  91 

Latham,  condemning  the  usual  school-drill  in  Lindley 
Murray,  rightly  remarks:  "Gross  vulgarity  is  a  fault  to 
be  prevented;  but  the  proper  prevention  is  to  be  got 
from  habit  —  not  rules. "  Similarly,  there  can  be  little 
question  that  good  composition  is  far  less  dependent 
upon  acquaintance  with  its  laws,  than  upon  practice  and 
natural  aptitude.  A  clear  head,  a  quick  imagination, 
and  a  sensitive  ear,  will  go  far  towards  making  all  rhe- 
torical precepts  needless.  He  who  daily  hears  and  reads 
well-framed  sentences,  will  naturally  more  or  less  tend 
to  use  similar  ones.  And  where  there  exists  any  mental 
idiosyncrasy  —  where  there  is  a  deficient  verbal  mem- 
ory, or  an  inadequate  sense  of  logical  dependence,  or 
but  little  perception  of  order,  or  a  lack  of  constructive 
ingenuity  —  no  amount  of  instruction  will  remedy  the 
defect.  Nevertheless,  some  practical  result  may  be  ex- 
pected from  a  familiarity  with  the  principles  of  style. 
The  endeavor  to  conform  to  laws  may  tell,  though 
slowly.  And  if  in  no  other  way,  yet,  as  facilitating  re- 
vision, a  knowledge  of  the  thing  to  be  achieved  —  a  clear 
idea  of  what  constitutes  a  beauty,  and  what  a  blemish  — 
cannot  fail  to  be  of  service. 

No  general  theory  of  expression  seems  yet  to  have 
been  enunciated.  The  maxims  contained  in  works  on 
composition  and  rhetoric,  are  presented  in  an  unor- 
ganized form.  Standing  as  isolated  dogmas  —  as  empir- 
ical generalizations,  they  are  neither  so  clearly  appre- 
hended, nor  so  much  respected,  as  they  would  be  were 
they  deduced  from  some  simple  first  principle.  We  are 
told  that  "brevity  is  the  soul  of  wit."  We  hear  styles 
condemned  as  verbose  or  involved.  Blair  says  that 
every  needless  part  of  a  sentence  "interrupts  the  de- 
scription and  clogs  the  image";  and  again,  that  "long 


92      ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

sentences  fatigue  the  reader's  attention."  It  is  re- 
marked by  Lord  Kaimes,  that  "to  give  the  utmost  force 
to  a  period,  it  ought,  if  possible,  to  be  closed  with  that 
word  which  makes  the  greatest  figure."  That  paren- 
theses should  be  avoided  and  that  Saxon  words  should 
be  used  in  preference  to  those  of  Latin  origin,  are  estab- 
lished precepts.  But,  however  influential  the  truths 
thus  dogmatically  embodied,  they  would  be  much  more 
influential  if  reduced  to  something  like  scientific  ordina- 
tion. In  this,  as  in  other  cases,  conviction  will  be  greatly 
strengthened  when  we  understand  the  why.  And  we 
may  be  sure  that  a  comprehension  of  the  general  princi- 
ple from  which  the  rules  of  composition  result,  will  not 
only  bring  them  home  to  us  with  greater  force,  but  will 
discover  to  us  other  rules  of  like  origin. 

On  seeking  for  some  clue  to  the  law  underlying  these 
current  maxims,  we  may  see  shadowed  forth  in  many  of 
them,  the  importance  of  economizing  the  reader's  or 
hearer's  attention.  To  so  present  ideas  that  they  may  be 
apprehended  with  the  least  possible  mental  effort,  is  the 
desideratum  towards  which  most  of  the  rules  above 
quoted  point.  When  we  condemn  writing  that  is  wordy, 
or  confused,  or  intricate  —  when  we  praise  this  style  as 
easy,  and  blame  that  as  fatiguing,  we  consciously  or  un- 
consciously assume  this  desideratum  as  our  standard  of 
judgment.  Regarding  language  as  an  apparatus  of  sym- 
bols for  the  conveyance  of  thought,  we  may  say  that,  as 
in  a  mechanical  apparatus,  the  more  simple  and  the  bet- 
ter arranged  its  parts,  the  greater  will  be  the  effect  pro- 
duced. In  either  case,  whatever  force  is  absorbed  by  the 
machine  is  deducted  from  the  result.  A  reader  or  lis- 
tener has  at  each  moment  but  a  limited  amount  of  men- 
tal power  available.    To  recognize  and  interpret  the 


HERBERT  SPENCER  93 

symbols  presented  to  him,  requires  part  of  this  power; 
to  arrange  and  combine  the  images  suggested  requires 
a  further  part;  and  only  that  part  which  remains  can  be 
used  for  realizing  the  thought  conveyed.  Hence,  the 
more  time  and  attention  it  takes  to  receive  and  under- 
stand each  sentence,  the  less  time  and  attention  can  be 
given  to  the  contained  idea;  and  the  less  vividly  will  that 
idea  be  conceived. 

How  truly  language  must  be  regarded  as  a  hindrance 
to  thought,  though  the  necessary  instrument  of  it,  we 
shall  clearly  perceive  on  remembering  the  comparative 
force  with  which  simple  ideas  are  communicated  by 
signs.  To  say,  "Leave  the  room,"  is  less  expressive  than 
to  point  to  the  door.  Placing  a  finger  on  the  lips  is  more 
forcible  than  whispering,  "Do  not  speak."  A  beck  of 
the  hand  is  better  than,  "Come  here."  No  phrase  can 
convey  the  idea  of  surprise  so  vividly  as  opening  the  eyes 
and  raising  the  eyebrows.  A  shrug  of  the  shoulders 
would  lose  much  by  translation  into  words.  Again,  it 
may  be  remarked  that  when  oral  language  is  employed, 
the  strongest  effects  are  produced  by  interjections, 
which  condense  entire  sentences  into  syllables.  And  in 
other  cases,  where  custom  allows  us  to  express  thoughts 
by  single  words,  as  in  Beware,  Heigho,  Fudge,  much  force 
would  be  lost  by  expanding  them  into  specific  proposi- 
tions. Hence,  carrying  out  the  metaphor  that  lan- 
guage is  the  vehicle  of  thought,  there  seems  reason  to 
think  that  in  all  cases  the  friction  and  inertia  of  the  ve- 
hicle deduct  from  its  efficiency;  and  that  in  composition, 
the  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  thing  to  be  done  is  to  reduce 
this  friction  and  inertia  to  the  smallest  possible  amount. 
Let  us  then  inquire  whether  economy  of  the  recipient's 
attention  is  not  the  secret  of  effect,  alike  in  the  right 


94      ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

choice  and  collocation  of  words,  in  the  best  arrangement 
of  clauses  in  a  sentence,  in  the  proper  order  of  its  prin- 
cipal and  subordinate  propositions,  in  the  judicious  use 
of  simile,  metaphor,  and  other  figures  of  speech,  and 
even  in  the  rhythmical  sequence  of  syllables. 

The  greater  forcibleness  of  Saxon  English,  or  rather 
non-Latin  English,  first  claims  our  attention.1  The  sev- 
eral special  reasons  assignable  for  this  may  all  be  re- 
duced to  the  general  reason  —  economy.  The  most 
important  of  them  is  early  association.  A  child's  vocab- 
ulary is  almost  wholly  Saxon.  He  says,  /  have,  not  / 
possess  —  /  wish,  not  /  desire;  he  does  not  reflect,  he 
thinks;  he  does  not  beg  for  amusement,  but  for  play;  he 
calls  things  nice  or  nasty,  not  pleasant  or  disagreeable. 
The  synonyms  which  he  learns  in  after  years,  never  be- 
come so  closely,  so  organically  connected  with  the  ideas 
signified,  as  do  these  original  words  used  in  childhood; 
and  hence  the  association  remains  less  strong.  But  in 
what  does  a  strong  association  between  a  word  and  an 
idea  differ  from  a  weak  one?  Simply  in  the  greater  ease 
and  rapidity  of  the  suggestive  action.  It  can  be  in  noth- 
ing else.  Both  of  two  words,  if  they  be  strictly  synony- 
mous, eventually  call  up  the  same  image.  The  expres- 
sion —  It  is  acid,  must  in  the  end  give  rise  to  the  same 
thought  as  —  It  is  sour;  but  because  the  term  acid  was 
learnt  later  in  life,  and  has  not  been  so  often  followed  by 
the  thought  symbolized,  it  does  not  so  readily  arouse 
that  thought  as  the  term  sour.  If  we  remember  how 
slowly  and  with  what  labor  the  appropriate  ideas  follow 
unfamiliar  words  in  another  language,  and  how  increas- 
ing familiarity  with  such  words  brings  greater  rapidity 

1  Of  course  we  now  know  that  the  inferiority  of  "Latin  English" 
has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  —  Editor. 


HERBERT  SPENCER  95 

and  ease  of  comprehension;  and  if  we  consider  that  the 
same  process  must  have  gone  on  with  the  words  of  our 
mother  tongue  from  childhood  upwards,  we  shall  clearly 
see  that  the  earliest  learnt  and  oftenest  used  words,  will, 
other  things  equal,  call  up  images  with  less  loss  of  time 
and  energy  than  their  later  learnt  synonyms. 

The  further  superiority  possessed  by  Saxon  English 
in  its  comparative  brevity,  obviously  comes  under  the 
same  generalization.  If  it  be  an  advantage  to  express 
an  idea  in  the  smallest  number  of  words,  then  will  it  be 
an  advantage  to  express  it  in  the  smallest  number  of 
syllables.  If  circuitous  phrases  and  needless  expletives 
distract  the  attention  and  diminish  the  strength  of  the 
impression  produced,  then  do  surplus  articulations  do  so. 
A  certain  effort,  though  commonly  an  inappreciable  one, 
must  be  required  to  recognize  every  vowel  and  conso- 
nant. If,  as  all  know,  it  is  tiresome  to  listen  to  an  indis- 
tinct speaker,  or  read  a  badly  written  manuscript;  and 
if,  as  we  cannot  doubt,  the  fatigue  is  a  cumulative  result 
of  the  attention  needed  to  catch  successive  syllables;  it 
follows  that  attention  is  in  such  cases  absorbed  by  each 
syllable.  And  if  this  be  true  when  the  syllables  are  diffi- 
cult of  recognition,  it  will  also  be  true,  though  in  a  less 
degree,  when  the  recognition  of  them  is  easy.  Hence, 
the  shortness  of  Saxon  words  becomes  a  reason  for  their 
greater  force.  One  qualification,  however,  must  not  be 
overlooked.  A  word  which  in  itself  embodies  the  most 
important  part  of  the  idea  to  be  conveyed,  especially 
when  that  idea  is  an  emotional  one,  may  often  with 
advantage  be  a  polysyllabic  word.  Thus  it  seems  more 
forcible  to  say,  "It  is  magnificent,"  than  "It  is  grand." 
The  word  vast  is  not  so  powerful  a  one  as  stupendous. 
Calling  a  thing  nasty  is  not  so  effective  as  calling  it  dis- 
gusting. 


96      ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

There  seem  to  be  several  causes  for  this  exceptional 
superiority  of  certain  long  words.  We  may  ascribe  it 
partly  to  the  fact  that  a  voluminous,  mouth-filling 
epithet  is,  by  its  very  size,  suggestive  of  largeness  or 
strength;  witness  the  immense  pomposity  of  sesquipe- 
dalian verbiage:  and  when  great  power  or  intensity  has 
to  be  suggested,  this  association  of  ideas  aids  the  effect. 
A  further  cause  may  be  that  a  word  of  several  syllables 
admits  of  more  emphatic  articulation;  and  as  emphatic 
articulation  is  a  sign  of  emotion,  the  unusual  impressive- 
ness  of  the  thing  named  is  implied  by  it.  Yet  another 
cause  is  that  a  long  word  (of  which  the  latter  syllables 
are  generally  inferred  as  soon  as  the  first  are  spoken)  al- 
lows the  hearer's  consciousness  a  longer  time  to  dwell 
upon  the  quality  predicated;  and  where,  as  in  the  above 
cases,  it  is  to  this  predicated  quality  that  the  entire 
attention  is  called,  an  advantage  results  from  keeping 
it  before  the  mind  for  an  appreciable  time.  The  reasons 
which  we  have  given  for  preferring  short  words  evi- 
dently do  not  hold  here.  So  that  to  make  our  generali- 
zation quite  correct  we  must  say,  that  while  in  certain 
sentences  expressing  strong  feeling,  the  word  which 
more  especially  implies  that  feeling  may  often  with  ad- 
vantage be  a  many-syllabled  or  Latin  one;  in  the  im- 
mense majority  of  cases,  each  word  serving  but  as  a  step 
to  the  idea  embodied  by  the  whole  sentence,  should,  if 
possible,  be  a  one-syllabled  or  Saxon  one. 

Once  more,  that  frequent  cause  of  strength  in  Saxon 
and  other  primitive  words  —  their  imitative  character, 
may  be  similarly  resolved  into  the  more  general  cause. 
Both  those  directly  imitative,  as  splash,  bang,  whiz,  roar, 
&C,  and  those  analogically  imitative,  as  rough,  smooth, 
keen,  blunt,  thin,  hard,  crag,  &c.,  have  a  greater  or  less 


HERBERT  SPENCER  97 

likeness  to  the  things  symbolized;  and  by  making  on  the 
senses  impressions  allied  to  the  ideas  to  be  called  up, 
they  save  part  of  the  effort  needed  to  call  up  such  ideas, 
and  leave  more  attention  for  the  ideas  themselves. 

The  economy  of  the  recipient's  mental  energy,  into 
which  are  thus  resolvable  the  several  causes  of  the 
strength  of  Saxon  English,  may  equally  be  traced  in  the 
superiority  of  specific  over  generic  words.  That  concrete 
terms  produce  more  vivid  impressions  than  abstract 
ones,  and  should,  when  possible,  be  used  instead,  is  a 
current  maxim  of  composition.  As  Dr.  Campbell  says, 
"The  more  general  the  terms  are,  the  picture  is  the 
fainter;  the  more  special  they  are,  'tis  the  brighter." 
We  should  avoid  such  a  sentence  as: 

In  proportion  as  the  manners,  customs,  and  amusements  of 
a  nation  are  cruel  and  barbarous,  the  regulations  of  their 
penal  code  will  be  severe. 

And  in  place  of  it  we  should  write: 

In  proportion  as  men  delight  in  battles,  bull-fights,  and 
combats  of  gladiators,  will  they  punish  by  hanging,  burning, 
and  the  rack. 

This  superiority  of  specific  expressions  is  clearly  due 
to  a  saving  of  the  effort  required  to  translate  words  into 
thoughts.  As  we  do  not  think  in  generals  but  in  particu- 
lars—  as,  whenever  any  class  of  things  is  referred  to,  we 
represent  it  to  ourselves  by  calling  to  mind  individual 
members  of  it;  it  follows  that  when  an  abstract  word  is 
used,  the  hearer  or  reader  has  to  choose  from  his  stock 
of  images,  one  or  more,  by  which  he  may  figure  to  him- 
self the  genus  mentioned.  In  doing  this,  some  delay 
must  arise  —  some  force  be  expended;  and  if,  by  em- 
ploying a  specific  term,  an  appropriate  image  can  be  at 


98      ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

once  suggested,  an  economy  is  achieved,  and  a  more 
vivid  impression  produced. 

Turning  now  from  the  choice  of  words  to  their  se- 
quence, we  shall  find  the  same  general  principle  hold 
good.  We  have  a  -priori  reasons  for  believing  that  in 
every  sentence  there  is  some  one  order  of  words  more 
effective  than  any  other;  and  that  this  order  is  the  one 
which  presents  the  elements  of  the  proposition  in  the 
succession  in  which  they  may  be  most  readily  put  to- 
gether. As  in  a  narrative,  the  events  should  be  stated 
in  such  sequence  that  the  mind  may  not  have  to  go 
backwards  and  forwards  in  order  to  rightly  connect 
them;  as  in  a  group  of  sentences,  the  arrangement  should 
be  such,  that  each  of  them  may  be  understood  as  it 
comes,  without  waiting  for  subsequent  ones;  so  in  every 
sentence,  the  sequence  of  words  should  be  that  which 
suggests  the  constituents  of  the  thought  in  the  order 
most  convenient  for  the  building  up  that  thought.  Duly 
to  enforce  this  truth,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  appli- 
cations of  it,  we  must  briefly  inquire  into  the  mental  act 
by  which  the  meaning  of  a  series  of  words  is  appre- 
hended. 

We  cannot  more  simply  do  this  than  by  considering 
the  proper  collocation  of  the  substantive  and  adjective. 
Is  it  better  to  place  the  adjective  before  the  substantive, 
or  the  substantive  before  the  adjective?  Ought  we  to 
say  with  the  French  —  nn  cheval  noir;  or  to  say  as  we  do 
—  a  black  horse?  Probably,  most  persons  of  culture 
would  decide  that  one  order  is  as  good  as  the  other. 
Alive  to  the  bias  produced  by  habit,  they  would  ascribe 
to  that  the  preference  they  feel  for  our  own  form  of  ex- 
pression. They  would  expect  those  educated  in  the  use 
of  the  opposite  form  to  have  an  equal  preference  for 


HERBERT  SPENCER  99 

that.  And  thus  they  would  conclude  that  neither  of 
these  instinctive  judgments  is  of  any  worth.  There  is, 
however,  a  philosophical  ground  for  deciding  in  favor  of 
the  English  custom.  If  "a  horse  black"  be  the  arrange- 
ment, immediately  on  the  utterance  of  the  word  "horse," 
there  arises,  or  tends  to  arise,  in  the  mind,  a  picture  an- 
swering to  that  word;  and  as  there  has  been  nothing  to 
indicate  what  kind  of  horse,  any  image  of  a  horse  sug- 
gests itself.  Very  likely,  however,  the  image  will  be  that 
of  a  brown  horse,  brown  horses  being  the  most  familiar. 
The  result  is  that  when  the  word  "black"  is  added,  a 
check  is  given  to  the  process  of  thought.  Either  the 
picture  of  a  brown  horse  already  present  to  the  imagina- 
tion has  to  be  suppressed,  and  the  picture  of  a  black  one 
summoned  in  its  place;  or  else,  if  the  picture  of  a  brown 
horse  be  yet  unformed,  the  tendency  to  form  it  has  to  be 
stopped.  Whichever  is  the  case,  a  certain  amount  of 
hindrance  results.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  "a  black 
horse"  be  the  expression  used,  no  such  mistake  can  be 
made.  The  word  "black,"  indicating  an  abstract  qual- 
ity, arouses  no  definite  idea.  It  simply  prepares  the 
mind  for  conceiving  some  object  of  that  color;  and  the 
attention  is  kept  suspended  until  that  object  is  known. 
If,  then,  by  the  precedence  of  the  adjective,  the  idea  is 
conveyed  without  liability  to  error,  whereas  the  preced- 
ence of  the  substantive  is  apt  to  produce  a  misconcep- 
tion, it  follows  that  the  one  gives  the  mind  less  trouble 
than  the  other,  and  is  therefore  more  forcible. 

Possibly  it  will  be  objected  that  the  adjective  and 
substantive  come  so  close  together,  that  practically  they 
may  be  considered  as  uttered  at  the  same  moment;  and 
that  on  hearing  the  phrase  "a  horse  black,"  there  is  not 
time  to  imagine  a  wrongly-colored  horse  before  the  word 


ioo    ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

"black"  follows  to  prevent  it.  It  must  be  owned  that  it 
is  not  easy  to  decide  by  introspection  whether  this  is  so 
or  not.  But  there  are  facts  collaterally  implying  that  it 
is  not.  Our  ability  to  anticipate  the  words  yet  unspoken 
is  one  of  them.  If  the  ideas  of  the  hearer  kept  consid- 
erably behind  the  expressions  of  the  speaker,  as  the  ob- 
jection assumes,  he  could  hardly  foresee  the  end  of  a 
sentence  by  the  time  it  was  half  delivered:  yet  this  con- 
stantly happens.  Were  the  supposition  true,  the  mind, 
instead  of  anticipating,  would  be  continually  falling 
more  and  more  in  arrear.  If  the  meanings  of  words  are 
not  realized  as  fast  as  the  words  are  uttered,  then  the 
loss  of  time  over  each  word  must  entail  such  an  accumu- 
lation of  delays  as  to  leave  a  hearer  entirely  behind.  But 
whether  the  force  of  these  replies  be  or  be  not  admitted, 
it  will  scarcely  be  denied  that  the  right  formation  of  a 
picture  will  be  facilitated  by  presenting  its  elements  in 
the  order  in  which  they  are  wanted;  even  though  the 
mind  should  do  nothing  until  it  has  received  them  all. 

What  is  here  said  respecting  the  succession  of  the  ad- 
jective and  substantive  is  obviously  applicable,  by 
change  of  terms,  to  the  adverb  and  verb.  And  without 
further  explanation,  it  will  be  manifest,  that  in  the  use 
of  prepositions  and  other  particles,  most  languages 
spontaneously  conform  with  more  or  less  completeness 
to  this  law. 

On  applying  a  like  analysis  to  the  larger  divisions  of  a 
sentence,  we  find  not  only  that  the  same  principle  holds 
good,  but  that  the  advantage  of  respecting  it  becomes 
marked.  In  the  arrangement  of  predicate  and  subject, 
for  example,  we  are  at  once  shown  that  as  the  predicate 
determines  the  aspect  under  which  the  subject  is  to  be 
conceived,  it  should  be  placed  first;  and  the  striking  ef- 


HERBERT  SPENCER  101 

feet  produced  by  so  placing  it  becomes  comprehensible. 
Take  the  often-quoted  contrast  between  "Great  is  Di- 
ana of  the  Ephesians, "  and  "Diana  of  the  Ephesians  is 
great."  When  the  first  arrangement  is  used,  the  utter- 
ance of  the  word  "great"  arouses  those  vague  associa- 
tions of  an  impressive  nature  with  which  it  has  been 
habitually  connected;  the  imagination  is  prepared  to 
clothe  with  high  attributes  whatever  follows;  and  when 
the  words  "Diana  of  the  Ephesians"  are  heard,  all  the 
appropriate  imagery  which  can,  on  the  instant,  be  sum- 
moned, is  used  in  the  formation  of  the  picture:  the  mind 
being  thus  led  directly,  and  without  error,  to  the  in- 
tended impression.  When,  on  the  contrary,  the  reverse 
order  is  followed,  the  idea  "Diana  of  the  Ephesians" 
is  conceived  with  no  special  reference  to  greatness;  and 
when  the  words  "is  great"  are  added,  the  conception 
has  to  be  remodelled:  whence  arises  a  loss  of  mental 
energy,  and  a  corresponding  diminution  of  effect.  The 
following  verse  from  Coleridge's  "Ancient  Mariner," 
though  somewhat  irregular  in  structure,  well  illustrates 
the  same  truth: 

Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone, 
Alone  on  a  wide  wide  sea! 
And  never  a  saint  took  pity  on 
My  soul  in  agony. 

Of  course  the  principle  equally  applies  when  the  predi- 
cate is  a  verb  or  a  participle.  And  as  effect  is  gained  by 
placing  first  all  words  indicating  the  quality,  conduct,  or 
condition  of  the  subject,  it  follows  that  the  copula  also 
should  have  precedence.  It  is  true  that  the  general  habit 
of  our  language  resists  this  arrangement  of  predicate, 
copula,  and  subject;  but  we  may  readily  find  instances 


LIBRARY 

STA-T  TWO' -ErSC'L'EGE 
SA    TA      A  .8#.rtA.  CMJF..RN1 


102    ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

of  the  additional  force  gained  by  conforming  to  it.  Thus, 
in  the  line  from  "Julius  Caesar"  — 

Then  burst  his  mighty  heart, 

priority  is  given  to  a  word  embodying  both  predicate 
and  copula.  In  a  passage  contained  in  "The  Battle  of 
Flodden  Field,"  the  like  order  is  systematically  em- 
ployed with  great  effect: 

The  Border  slogan  rent  the  sky! 

A  home!  a  Gordon!  was  the  cry; 

Loud  were  the  clanging  blows: 

Advanced,  — forced  back,  —  now  low,  now  high, 

The  pennon  sunk  and  rose; 
As  bends  the  bark's  mast  in  the  gale 
When  rent  are  rigging,  shrouds,  and  sail, 
It  wavered  'mid  the  foes. 

Pursuing  the  principle  yet  further,  it  is  obvious  that 
for  producing  the  greatest  effect,  not  only  should  the 
main  divisions  of  a  sentence  observe  this  sequence,  but 
the  subdivisions  of  these  should  be  similarly  arranged. 
In  nearly  all  cases,  the  predicate  is  accompanied  by 
some  limit  or  qualification  called  its  complement.  Com- 
monly, also,  the  circumstances  of  the  subject,  which 
form  its  complement,  have  to  be  specified.  And  as  these 
qualifications  and  circumstances  must  determine  the 
mode  in  which  the  acts  and  things  they  belong  to  are 
conceived,  precedence  should  be  given  to  them.  Lord 
Kaimes  notices  the  fact  that  this  order  is  preferable; 
though  without  giving  the  reason.  He  says:  —  "When 
a  circumstance  is  placed  at  the  beginning  of  the  period, 
or  near  the  beginning,  the  transition  from  it  to  the  prin- 
cipal subject  is  agreeable:  it  is  like  ascending  or  going 
upward."  A  sentence  arranged  in  illustration  of  this 
will  be  desirable.   Here  is  one: 


HERBERT  SPENCER  103 

Whatever  it  may  be  in  theory,  it  is  clear  that  in  practice 
the  French  idea  of  liberty  is  —  the  right  of  every  man  to  be 
master  of  the  rest. 

In  this  case,  were  the  first  two  clauses,  up  to  the  word 
"practice"  inclusive,  which  qualify  the  subject,  to  be 
placed  at  the  end  instead  of  the  beginning,  much  of  the 
force  would  be  lost;  as  thus: 

The  French  idea  of  liberty  is  —  the  right  of  every  man  to 
be  master  of  the  rest;  in  practice  at  least,  if  not  in  theory. 

Similarly,  with  respect  to  the  conditions  under  which 
any  fact  is  predicated.  Observe  in  the  following  example 
the  effect  of  putting  them  last: 

How  immense  would  be  the  stimulus  to  progress,  were  the 
honor  now  given  to  wealth  and  title  given  exclusively  to  high 
achievements  and  intrinsic  worth! 

And  then  observe  the  superior  effect  of  putting  them 
first: 

Were  the  honor  now  given  to  wealth  and  title  given  ex- 
clusively to  high  achievements  and  intrinsic  worth,  how  im- 
mense would  be  the  stimulus  to  progress! 

The  effect  of  giving  priority  to  the  complement  of  the 
predicate,  as  well  as  the  predicate  itself,  is  finely  dis- 
played in  the  opening  of  "Hyperion": 

Deep  in  the  shady  sadness  of  a  vale 
Far  sunken  from  the  healthy  breath  of  morn, 

Far  from  the  fiery  noon,  and  eve's  one  star, 
Sat  gray-haired  Saturn,  quiet  as  a  stone. 

Here  it  will  be  observed,  not  only  that  the  predicate 
"sat"  precedes  the  subject  "Saturn,"  and  that  the 
three  lines  in  italics,  constituting  the  complement  of  the 
predicate,  come  before  it;  but  that  in  the  structure  of 


io4    ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

that  complement  also,  the  same  order  is  followed:  each 
line  being  so  arranged  that  the  qualifying  words  are 
placed  before  the  words  suggesting  concrete  images. 

The  right  succession  of  the  principal  and  subordinate 
propositions  in  a  sentence  manifestly  depends  on  the 
same  law.  Regard  for  economy  of  the  recipient's  atten- 
tion, which,  as  we  find,  determines  the  best  order  for  the 
subject,  copula,  predicate,  and  their  complements,  dic- 
tates that  the  subordinate  proposition  shall  precede  the 
principal  one,  when  the  sentence  includes  two.  Con- 
taining, as  the  subordinate  proposition  does,  some  qual- 
ifying or  explanatory  idea,  its  priority  prevents  miscon- 
ception of  the  principal  one;  and  therefore  saves  the 
mental  effort  needed  to  correct  such  misconception. 
This  will  be  seen  in  the  annexed  example: 

The  secrecy  once  maintained  in  respect  to  the  parliamen- 
tary debates,  is  still  thought  needful  in  diplomacy;  and  in 
virtue  of  this  secret  diplomacy,  England  may  any  day  be  un- 
awares betrayed  by  its  ministers  into  a  war  costing  a  hundred 
thousand  lives,  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  treasure:  yet  the 
English  pique  themselves  on  being  a  self-governed  people. 

The  two  subordinate  propositions,  ending  with  the 
semi-colon  and  colon  respectively,  almost  wholly  deter- 
mine the  meaning  of  the  principal  proposition  with 
which  it  concludes;  and  the  effect  would  be  lost  were 
they  placed  last  instead  of  first. 

The  general  principle  of  right  arrangement  in  sen- 
tences, which  we  have  traced  in  its  application  to  the 
leading  divisions  of  them,  equally  determines  the  proper 
order  of  their  minor  divisions.  In  every  sentence  of  any 
complexity  the  complement  to  the  subject  contains 
several  clauses,  and  that  to  the  predicate  several  others; 
and  these  may  be  arranged  in  greater  or  less  conformity 


HERBERT  SPENCER  105 

to  the  law  of  easy  apprehension.  Of  course  with  these, 
as  with  the  larger  members,  the  succession  should  be 
from  the  less  specific  to  the  more  specific  —  from  the 
abstract  to  the  concrete. 

Now,  however,  we  must  notice  a  further  condition  to 
be  fulfilled  in  the  proper  construction  of  a  sentence;  but 
still  a  condition  dictated  by  the  same  general  principle 
with  the  other:  the  condition,  namely,  that  the  words 
and  expressions  most  nearly  related  in  thought  shall  be 
brought  the  closest  together.  Evidently  the  single 
words,  the  minor  clauses,  and  the  leading  divisions  of 
every  proposition,  severally  qualify  each  other.  The 
longer  the  time  that  elapses  between  the  mention  of  any 
qualifying  member  and  the  member  qualified,  the  longer 
must  the  mind  be  exerted  in  carrying  forward  the  quali- 
fying member  ready  for  use.  And  the  more  numerous 
the  qualifications  to  be  simultaneously  remembered  and 
rightly  applied,  the  greater  will  be  the  mental  power  ex- 
pended, and  the  smaller  the  effect  produced.  Hence, 
other  things  equal,  force  will  be  gained  by  so  arranging 
the  members  of  a  sentence  that  these  suspensions  shall 
at  any  moment  be  the  fewest  in  number;  and  shall  also 
be  of  the  shortest  duration.  The  following  is  an  instance 
of  defective  combination: 

A  modern  newspaper-statement,  though  probably  true, 
would  be  laughed  at  if  quoted  in  a  book  as  testimony;  but 
the  letter  of  a  court  gossip  is  thought  good  historical  evidence, 
if  written  some  centuries  ago. 

A  rearrangement  of  this,  in  accordance  with  the 
principle  indicated  above,  will  be  found  to  increase  the 
effect.   Thus: 

Though  probably  true,  a  modern  newspaper-statement 
quoted  in  a  book  as  testimony,  would  be  laughed  at;  but  the 


106    ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

letter  of  a  court  gossip,  if  written  some  centuries  ago,  is 
thought  good  historical  evidence. 

By  making  this  change,  some  of  the  suspensions  are 
avoided  and  others  shortened;  while  there  is  less  liability 
to  produce  premature  conceptions.  The  passage  quoted 
below  from  "Paradise  Lost"  affords  a  fine  instance  of  a 
sentence  well  arranged;  alike  in  the  priority  of  the  sub- 
ordinate members,  in  the  avoidance  of  long  and  nu- 
merous suspensions,  and  in  the  correspondence  between 
the  order  of  the  clauses  and  the  sequence  of  the  phe- 
nomena described,  which,  by  the  way,  is  a  further 
prerequisite  to  easy  comprehension,  and  therefore  to 
effect. 

As  when  a  prowling  wolf, 
Whom  hunger  drives  to  seek  new  haunt  for  prey, 
Watching  where  shepherds  pen  their  flocks  at  eve, 
In  hurdled  cotes  amid  the  field  secure, 
Leaps  o'er  the  fence  with  ease  into  the  fold; 
Or  as  a  thief,  bent  to  unhoard  the  cash 
Of  some  rich  burgher,  whose  substantial  doors, 
Cross-barred,  and  bolted  fast,  fear  no  assault, 
In  at  the  window  climbs,  or  o'er  the  tiles; 
So  clomb  this  first  grand  thief  into  God's  fold; 
So  since  into  his  church  lewd  hirelings  climb. 

The  habitual  use  of  sentences  in  which  all  or  most  of 
the  descriptive  and  limiting  elements  precede  those  de- 
scribed and  limited,  gives  rise  to  what  is  called  the 
inverted  style:  a  title  which  is,  however,  by  no  means 
confined  to  this  structure,  but  is  often  used  where  the 
order  of  the  words  is  simply  unusual.  A  more  appro- 
priate title  would  be  the  direct  style,  as  contrasted  with 
the  other,  or  indirect  style:  the  peculiarity  of  the  one 
being,  that  it  conveys  each  thought  into  the  mind  step 
by  step  with  little  liability  to  error;  and  of  the  other, 


HERBERT  SPENCER  107 

that  it  gets  the  right  thought  conceived  by  a  series  of 
approximations. 

The  superiority  of  the  direct  over  the  indirect  form  of 
sentence,  implied  by  the  several  conclusions  that  have 
been  drawn,  must  not,  however,  be  affirmed  without 
reservation.  Though,  up  to  a  certain  point,  it  is  well  for 
the  qualifying  clauses  of  a  period  to  precede  those  quali- 
fied; yet,  as  carrying  forward  each  qualifying  clause 
costs  some  mental  effort,  it  follows  that  when  the  num- 
ber of  them  and  the  time  they  are  carried  become  great, 
we  reach  a  limit  beyond  which  more  is  lost  than  is 
gained.  Other  things  equal,  the  arrangement  should  be 
such  that  no  concrete  image  shall  be  suggested  until  the 
materials  out  of  which  it  is  to  be  made  have  been  pre- 
sented. And  yet,  as  lately  pointed  out,  other  things 
equal,  the  fewer  the  materials  to  be  held  at  once,  and 
the  shorter  the  distance  they  have  to  be  borne,  the  bet- 
ter. Hence  in  some  cases  it  becomes  a  question  whether 
most  mental  effort  will  be  entailed  by  the  many  and  long 
suspensions,  or  by  the  correction  of  successive  miscon- 
ceptions. 

This  question  may  sometimes  be  decided  by  con- 
sidering the  capacity  of  the  persons  addressed.  A 
greater  grasp  of  mind  is  required  for  the  ready  compre- 
hension of  thoughts  expressed  in  the  direct  manner, 
where  the  sentences  are  anywise  intricate.  To  recollect 
a  number  of  preliminaries  stated  in  elucidation  of  a 
coming  idea,  and  to  apply  them  all  to  the  formation  of 
it  when  suggested,  demands  a  good  memory  and  con- 
siderable power  of  concentration.  To  one  possessing 
these,  the  direct  method  will  mostly  seem  the  best; 
while  to  one  deficient  in  them  it  will  seem  the  worst. 
Just  as  it  may  cost  a  strong  man  less  effort  to  carry  a 


108    ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

hundred-weight  from  place  to  place  at  once,  than  by  a 
stone  at  a  time;  so,  to  an  active  mind  it  may  be  easier  to 
bear  along  all  the  qualifications  of  an  idea  and  at  once 
rightly  form  it  when  named,  than  to  first  imperfectly 
conceive  such  idea  and  then  carry  back  to  it,  one  by 
one,  the  details  and  limitations  afterwards  mentioned. 
While  conversely,  as  for  a  boy  the  only  possible  mode  of 
transferring  a  hundred-weight  is  that  of  taking  it  in 
portions;  so  for  a  weak  mind  the  only  possible  mode  of 
forming  a  compound  conception  may  be  that  of  building 
it  up  by  carrying  separately  its  several  parts. 

That  the  indirect  method  —  the  method  of  convey- 
ing the  meaning  by  a  series  of  approximations  —  is  best 
fitted  for  the  uncultivated,  may  indeed  be  inferred  from 
their  habitual  use  of  it.  The  form  of  expression  adopted 
by  the  savage,  as  in  —  "  Water,  give  me,"  is  the  simplest 
type  of  the  approximate  arrangement.  In  pleonasms, 
which  are  comparatively  prevalent  among  the  unedu- 
cated, the  same  essential  structure  is  seen;  as,  for  in- 
stance, in — "The  men,  they  were  there."  Again,  the 
old  possessive  case —  "The  king,  his  crown,"  conforms 
to  the  like  order  of  thought.  Moreover,  the  fact 
that  indirect  mode  is  called  the  natural  one,  implies 
that  it  is  the  one  spontaneously  employed  by  the  com- 
mon people:  that  is  —  the  one  easiest  for  undisciplined 
minds. 

There  are  many  cases,  however,  in  which  neither  the 
direct  nor  the  indirect  structure  is  the  best;  but  where 
an  intermediate  structure  is  preferable  to  both.  When 
the  number  of  circumstances  and  qualifications  to  be 
included  in  the  sentence  is  great,  the  most  judicious 
course  is  neither  to  enumerate  them  all  before  introduc- 
ing the  idea  to  which  they  belong,  nor  to  put  this  idea 


HERBERT  SPENCER  109 

first  and  let  it  be  remodelled  to  agree  with  the  partic- 
ulars afterwards  mentioned;  but  to  do  a  little  of  each. 
Take  a  case.  It  is  desirable  to  avoid  so  extremely  in- 
direct an  arrangement  as  the  following: 

We  came  to  our  journey's  end,  at  last,  with  no  small  dif- 
ficulty, after  much  fatigue,  through  deep  roads,  and  bad 
weather. 

Yet  to  transform  this  into  an  entirely  direct  sentence 
would  not  produce  a  satisfactory  effect;  as  witness: 

At  last,  with  no  small  difficulty,  after  much  fatigue,  through 
deep  roads,  and  bad  weather,  we  came  to  our  journey's  end. 

Dr.  Whately,  from  whom  we  quote  the  first  of  these 
two  arrangements,  proposes  this  construction: 

At  last,  after  much  fatigue,  through  deep  roads  and  bad 
weather,  we  came,  with  no  small  difficulty,  to  our  journey's 
end. 

Here  it  will  be  observed  that  by  introducing  the 
words  "we  came"  a  little  earlier  in  the  sentence,  the 
labor  of  carrying  forward  so  many  particulars  is  di- 
minished, and  the  subsequent  qualification  "with  no 
small  difficulty"  entails  an  addition  to  the  thought  that 
is  very  easily  made.  But  a  further  improvement  may 
be  produced  by  introducing  the  words  "we  came"  still 
earlier;  especially  if  at  the  same  time  the  qualifications 
be  rearranged  in  conformity  with  the  principle  already 
explained,  that  the  more  abstract  elements  of  the 
thought  should  come  before  the  more  concrete.  Ob- 
serve the  better  effect  obtained  by  making  these  two 
changes: 

At  last,  with  no  small  difficulty,  and  after  much  fatigue, 
we  came,  through  deep  roads  and  bad  weather,  to  our  jour- 
ney's end. 


no  ECONOMY  APPLIED  TO  WORDS 

This  reads  with  comparative  smoothness;  that  is,  with 
less  hindrance  from  suspensions  and  reconstructions  of 
thought  —  with  less  mental  effort. 

Before  dismissing  this  branch  of  our  subject,  it  should 
be  further  remarked,  that  even  when  addressing  the 
most  vigorous  intellects,  the  direct  style  is  unfit  for  com- 
municating ideas  of  a  complex  or  abstract  character.  So 
long  as  the  mind  has  not  much  to  do,  it  may  be  well  able 
to  grasp  all  the  preparatory  clauses  of  a  sentence,  and  to 
use  them  effectively;  but  if  some  subtlety  in  the  argu- 
ment absorb  the  attention  —  if  every  faculty  be  strained 
in  endeavoring  to  catch  the  speaker's  or  writer's  drift,  it 
may  happen  that  the  mind,  unable  to  carry  on  both 
processes  at  once,  will  break  down,  and  allow  the  ele- 
ments of  the  thought  to  lapse  into  confusion. 


WORDS  THAT  LAUGH  AND  CRY* 

THE  NEW  YORK  SUN 

"Words  that  Laugh  and  Cry"  appeared  as  an  editorial  in  the 
New  York  Sun  on  March  16,  1890.  It  is  a  compressed  body  of 
excellent  counsel  on  writing,  and  a  specimen  of  the  directness 
and  simplicity  that  characterize  the  best  American  editorials. 

(ID  it  ever  strike  you  that  there  was  anything 
queer  about  the  capacity  of  written  words  to 
absorb  and  convey  feelings?  Taken  separately  they  are 
mere  symbols  with  no  more  feeling  to  them  than  so 
many  bricks,  but  string  them  along  in  a  row  under  cer- 
tain mysterious  conditions  and  you  find  yourself  laugh- 
ing or  crying  as  your  eye  runs  over  them.  That  words 
should  convey  mere  ideas  is  not  so  remarkable.  "The 
boy  is  fat,"  "  the  cat  has  nine  tails,"  are  statements  that 
seem  obviously  enough  within  the  power  of  written 
language.  But  it  is  different  with  feelings.  They  are  no 
more  visible  in  the  symbols  that  hold  them  than  elec- 
tricity is  visible  on  the  wire;  and  yet  there  they  are, 
always  ready  to  respond  when  the  right  test  is  applied 
by  the  right  person.  That  spoken  words,  charged  with 
human  tones  and  lighted  by  human  eyes,  should  carry 
feelings,  is  not  so  astonishing.  The  magnetic  sympathy 
of  the  orator  one  understands;  he  might  affect  his  au- 
dience, possibly,  if  he  spoke  in  a  language  they  did  not 
know.  But  written  words:  How  can  they  do  it!  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  that  you  possess  remarkable  facility 
in  grouping  language,  and  that  you  have  strong  feelings 
upon  some  subject,  which  finally  you  determine  to  com- 

1  Reprinted  from  Casual  Essays  0/  the  Sun,  by  permission  of  the 
publishers  of  the  New  York  Sun. 


ii2    WORDS  THAT  LAUGH  AND  CRY 

mit  to  paper.  Your  pen  runs  along,  the  words  present 
themselves,  or  are  dragged  out,  and  fall  into  their  places. 
You  are  a  good  deal  moved;  here  you  chuckle  to  your- 
self, and  half  a  dozen  of  lines  further  down  a  lump  comes 
into  your  throat,  and  perhaps  you  have  to  wipe  your 
eyes.  You  finish,  and  the  copy  goes  to  the  printer. 
When  it  gets  into  print  a  reader  sees  it.  His  eye  runs 
along  the  lines  and  down  the  page  until  it  comes  to  the 
place  where  you  chuckled  as  your  wrote;  then  he  smiles, 
and  six  lines  below  he  has  to  swallow  several  times  and 
snuffle  and  wink  to  restrain  an  exhibition  of  weakness. 
And  then  some  one  else  comes  along  who  is  not  so  good 
a  word  juggler  as  you  are,  or  who  has  no  feelings,  and 
swaps  the  words  about  a  little,  and  twists  the  sentences; 
and  behold  the  spell  is  gone,  and  you  have  left  a  parcel 
of  written  language  duly  charged  with  facts,  but  without 
a  single  feeling. 

No  one  can  juggle  with  words  with  any  degree  of  suc- 
cess without  getting  a  vast  respect  for  their  independent 
ability.  They  will  catch  the  best  idea  a  man  ever  had  as 
it  flashes  through  his  brain,  and  hold  on  to  it,  to  surprise 
him  with  it  long  after,  and  make  him  wonder  that  he  was 
ever  man  enough  to  have  such  an  idea.  And  often  they 
will  catch  an  idea  on  its  way  from  the  brain  to  the  pen 
point,  turn,  twist,  and  improve  on  it  as  the  eye  winks, 
and  in  an  instant  there  they  are,  strung  hand  in  hand 
across  the  page,  and  grinning  back  at  the  writer:  "This 
is  our  idea,  old  man;  not  yours!  " 

As  for  poetry,  every  word  that  expects  to  earn  its  salt 
in  poetry  should  have  a  head  and  a  pair  of  legs  of  its  own, 
to  go  and  find  its  place,  carrying  another  word,  if  neces- 
sary, on  its  back.  The  most  that  should  be  expected  of 
any  competent  poet  in  regular  practice  is  to  serve  a 


NEW  YORK  SUN  113 

general  summons  and  notice  of  action  on  the  language. 
If  the  words  won't  do  the  rest  for  him  it  indicates  that 
he  is  out  of  sympathy  with  his  tools. 

But  you  don't  find  feelings  in  written  words  unless 
there  were  feelings  in  the  man  who  used  them.  With  all 
their  apparent  independence  they  seem  to  be  little  ves- 
sels that  hold  in  some  puzzling  fashion  exactly  what  is 
put  into  them.  You  can  put  tears  into  them,  as  though 
they  were  so  many  little  buckets;  and  you  can  hang 
smiles  along  them,  like  Monday's  clothes  on  the  line,  or 
you  can  starch  them  with  facts  and  stand  them  up  like  a 
picket  fence;  but  you  won't  get  the  tears  out  unless  you 
first  put  them  in.  Art  won't  put  them  there.  It  is  like 
the  faculty  of  getting  the  quality  of  interest  into  pic- 
tures. If  the  quality  exists  in  the  artist's  mind  he  is 
likely  to  find  measn  to  get  it  into  his  pictures,  but  if  it 
isn't  in  the  man  no  technical  skill  will  supply  it.  So,  if 
the  feelings  are  in  the  writer  and  he  knows  his  business, 
they  will  get  into  the  words;  but  they  must  be  in  him 
first.  It  isn't  the  way  the  words  are  strung  together 
that  makes  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  speech  immortal,  but 
the  feelings  that  were  in  the  man.  But  how  do  such 
little,  plain  words  manage  to  keep  their  grip  on  such 
feelings?     That  is  the  miracle. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF 
COMPOSITION 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

i 809-1 849 

Since  the  original  publication  of  "The  Philosophy  of  Compo- 
sition" in  Graham  s  Magazine,  April,  1846,  it  has  provoked 
much  discussion.  Most  critics  contend  that  neither  Poe  nor 
anyone  else  ever  wrote  a  poem  or  story  in  the  deliberate  self- 
analytical  manner  in  which  Poe  has  told  us  he  set  about  the 
composition  of  "The  Raven."  This  view,  however,  disregards 
the  most  characteristic  of  Poe's  mental  habits.  True,  it  might 
not  be  possible  for  most  men  to  analyze  their  own  intentions 
and  then  analyze  the  mental  steps  required  in  carrying  out  the 
intentions,  but  for  Poe  it  was  not  only  possible  but  usual.  His 
stories,  his  more  formal  articles,  and  his  poems  reveal  incessant 
self-analysis  —  sometimes  to  their  emotional  detriment;  and 
his  notes  and  other  fugitive  writings  constitute  a  complete 
commentary  on  his  habit  of  going  about  his  work  with  the  ut- 
most self-scrutiny  and  deliberation. 

CHARLES  DICKENS,  in  a  note  now  lying  before 
me,  alluding  to  an  examination  I  once  made  of  the 
mechanism  of  "  Barnaby  Rudge,"  says  —  "  By  the  way, 
are  you  aware  that  Godwin  wrote  his  '  Caleb  Williams  ' 
backwards?  He  first  involved  his  hero  in  a  web  of  diffi- 
culties, forming  the  second  volume,  and  then,  for  the 
first,  cast  about  him  for  some  mode  of  accounting  for 
what  had  been  done." 

I  cannot  think  this  the  precise  mode  of  procedure  on 
the  part  of  Godwin  —  and  indeed  what  he  himself 
acknowledges,  is  not  altogether  in  accordance  with  Mr. 
Dickens'  idea — but  the  author  of  "Caleb  Williams" 
was  too  good  an  artist  not  to  perceive  the  advantage 
derivable  from  at  least  a  somewhat  similar  process. 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  115 

Nothing  is  more  clear  than  that  every  plot,  worth  the 
name,  must  be  elaborated  to  its  denouement  before  any- 
thing be  attempted  with  the  pen.  It  is  only  with  the 
denouement  constantly  in  view  that  we  can  give  a  plot 
its  indispensable  air  of  consequence,  or  causation,  by 
making  the  incidents,  and  especially  the  tone  at  all 
points,  tend  to  the  development  of  the  intention. 

There  is  a  radical  error,  I  think,  in  the  usual  mode  of 
constructing  a  story.  Either  history  affords  a  thesis  — 
or  one  is  suggested  by  an  incident  of  the  day  —  or,  at 
best,  the  author  sets  himself  to  work  in  the  combination 
of  striking  events  to  form  merely  the  basis  of  his  narra- 
tive—  designing,  generally,  to  fill  in  with  description, 
dialogue,  or  autorial  comment,  whatever  crevices  of 
fact,  or  action,  may,  from  page  to  page,  render  them- 
selves apparent. 

I  prefer  commencing  with  the  consideration  of  an 
effect.  Keeping  originality  always  in  view  —  for  he  is 
false  to  himself  who  ventures  to  dispense  with  so  ob- 
vious and  so  easily  attainable  a  source  of  interest  —  I 
say  to  myself,  in  the  first  place,  "Of  the  innumerable 
effects,  or  impressions,  of  which  the  heart,  the  intellect, 
or  (more  generally)  the  soul  is  susceptible,  what  one 
shall  I,  on  the  present  occasion,  select?"  Having 
chosen  a  novel,  first,  and  secondly  a  vivid  effect,  I  con- 
sider whether  it  can  be  best  wrought  by  incident  or  tone 

—  whether  by  ordinary  incidents  and  peculiar  tone,  or 
the  converse,  or  by  peculiarity  both  of  incident  and  tone 

—  afterward  looking  about  me  (or  rather  within)  for 
such  combinations  of  event,  or  tone,  as  shall  best  aid  me 
in  the  construction  of  the  effect. 

I  have  often  thought  how  interesting  a  magazine 
paper  might  be  written  by  any  author  who  would  — 


u6    PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

that  is  to  say  who  could — detail,  step  by  step,  the  proc- 
esses by  which  any  one  of  his  compositions  attained  its 
ultimate  point  of  completion.  Why  such  a  paper  has 
never  been  given  to  the  world,  I  am  much  at  a  loss  to 
say —  but,  perhaps,  the  autorial  vanity  has  had  more 
to  do  with  the  omission  than  any  one  other  cause.  Most 
writers — poets  in  especial  —  prefer  having  it  under- 
stood that  they  compose  by  a  species  of  fine  frenzy  — 
an  ecstatic  intuition  —  and  would  positively  shudder  at 
letting  the  public  take  a  peep  behind  the  scenes,  at  the 
elaborate  and  vacillating  crudities  of  thought  —  at  the 
true  purposes  seized  only  at  the  last  moment  —  at 
the  innumerable  glimpses  of  idea  that  arrived  not  at  the 
maturity  of  full  view  —  at  the  fully  matured  fancies  dis- 
carded in  despair  as  unmanageable  —  at  the  cautious 
selections  and  rejections  —  at  the  painful  erasures  and 
interpolations  —  in  a  word,  at  the  wheels  and  pinions  — 
the  tackle  for  scene-shifting  —  the  step-ladders  and 
demon-traps  —  the  cock's  feathers,  the  red  paint  and 
the  black  patches,  which,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of 
the  hundred,  constitute  the  properties  of  the  literary 
his  trio. 

I  am  aware,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  case  is  by  no 
means  common,  in  which  an  author  is  at  all  in  condition 
to  retrace  the  steps  by  which  his  conclusions  have  been 
attained.  In  general,  suggestions,  having  arisen  pell- 
mell,  are  pursued  and  forgotten  in  a  similar  manner. 

For  my  own  part,  I  have  neither  sympathy  with  the 
repugnance  alluded  to,  nor,  at  any  time  the  least  diffi- 
culty in  recalling  to  mind  the  progressive  steps  of  any 
of  my  compositions;  and,  since  the  interest  of  an  anal- 
ysis, or  reconstruction,  such  as  I  have  considered  a 
desideratum,  is  quite  independent  of  any  real  or  fancied 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  117 

interest  in  the  thing  analyzed,  it  will  not  be  regarded  as 
a  breach  of  decorum  on  my  part  to  show  the  modus 
operandi  by  which  some  one  of  my  own  works  was  put 
together.  I  select  "The  Raven,"  as  most  generally 
known.  It  is  my  design  to  render  it  manifest  that  no 
one  point  in  its  composition  is  referrible  either  to  acci- 
dent or  intuition  —  that  the  work  proceeded,  step  by 
step,  to  its  completion  with  the  precision  and  rigid  con- 
sequence of  a  mathematical  problem. 

Let  us  dismiss,  as  irrelevant  to  the  poem,  per  se,  the 
circumstance — or  say  the  necessity — which,  in  the 
first  place,  gave  rise  to  the  intention  of  composing  a 
poem  that  should  suit  at  once  the  popular  and  the 
critical  taste. 

We  commence,  then,  with  this  intention. 

The  initial  consideration  was  that  of  extent.  If  any 
literary  work  is  too  long  to  be  read  at  one  sitting,  we 
must  be  content  to  dispense  with  the  immensely  impor- 
tant effect  derivable  from  unity  of  impression  —  for,  if 
two  sittings  be  required,  the  affairs  of  the  world  inter- 
fere, and  every  thing  like  totality  is  at  once  destroyed. 
But  since,  ceteris  paribus,  no  poet  can  afford  to  dispense 
with  any  thing  that  may  advance  his  design,  it  but  re- 
mains to  be  seen  whether  there  is,  in  extent,  any  advan- 
tage to  counterbalance  the  loss  of  unity  which  attends  it. 
Here  I  say  no,  at  once.  What  we  term  a  long  poem  is,  in 
fact,  merely  a  succession  of  brief  ones  —  that  is  to  say, 
of  brief  poetical  effects.  It  is  needless  to  demonstrate 
that  a  poem  is  such,  only  inasmuch  as  it  intensely  ex- 
cites, by  elevating,  the  soul;  and  all  intense  excitements 
are,  through  a  psychal  necessity,  brief.  For  this  reason, 
at  least  one  half  of  the  "Paradise  Lost"  is  essentially 
prose  —  a    succession    of   poetical    excitements    inter- 


n8     PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

spersed,  inevitably,  with  corresponding  depressions  — 
the  whole  being  deprived,  through  the  extremeness  of 
its  length,  of  the  vastly  important  artistic  element, 
totality,  or  unity,  of  effect. 

It  appears  evident,  then,  that  there  is  a  distinct  limit, 
as  regards  length,  to  all  works  of  literary  art  —  the 
limit  of  a  single  sitting  —  and  that,  although  in  certain 
classes  of  prose  composition,  such  as  "  Robinson  Cru- 
soe," (demanding  no  unity),  this  limit  may  be  ad- 
vantageously overpassed,  it  can  never  properly  be 
overpassed  in  a  poem.  Within  this  limit,  the  extent  of  a 
poem  may  be  made  to  bear  mathematical  relation  to  its 
merit  —  in  other  words,  to  the  excitement  or  elevation 
—  again  in  other  words,  to  the  degree  of  the  true  poeti- 
cal effect  which  it  is  capable  of  inducing;  for  it  is  clear 
that  the  brevity  must  be  in  direct  ratio  of  the  intensity 
of  the  intended  effect:  this,  with  one  proviso —  that 
a  certain  degree  of  duration  is  absolutely  requisite  for 
the  production  of  any  effect  at  all. 

Holding  in  view  these  considerations,  as  well  as  that 
degree  of  excitement  which  I  deemed  not  above  the 
popular,  while  not  below  the  critical,  taste,  I  reached 
at  once  what  I  conceived  the  proper  length  for  my  in- 
tended poem  —  a  length  of  about  one  hundred  lines. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  hundred  and  eight. 

My  next  thought  concerned  the  choice  of  an  impres- 
sion, or  effect,  to  be  conveyed:  and  here  I  may  as  well 
observe  that,  throughout  the  construction,  I  kept 
steadily  in  view  the  design  of  rendering  the  work  uni- 
versally appreciable.  I  should  be  carried  too  far  out  of 
my  immediate  topic  were  I  to  demonstrate  a  point  upon 
which  I  have  repeatedly  insisted,  and  which,  with  the 
poetical,  stands  not  in  the  slightest  need  of  demonstra- 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  119 

tion  —  the  point,  I  mean,  that  Beauty  is  the  sole  legiti- 
mate province  of  the  poem.  A  few  words,  however,  in 
elucidation  of  my  real  meaning,  which  some  of  my 
friends  have  evinced  a  disposition  to  misrepresent. 
That  pleasure  which  is  at  once  the  most  intense,  the 
most  elevating,  and  the  most  pure,  is,  I  believe,  found  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  beautiful.  When,  indeed,  men 
speak  of  Beauty,  they  mean,  precisely,  not  a  quality,  as 
is  supposed,  but  an  effect  —  they  refer,  in  short,  just  to 
that  intense  and  pure  elevation  of  soul —  not  of  intel- 
lect, or  of  heart  —  upon  which  I  have  commented,  and 
which  is  experienced  in  consequence  of  contemplating 
"the  beautiful."  Now  I  designate  Beauty  as  the  prov- 
ince of  the  poem,  merely  because  it  is  an  obvious  rule 
of  Art  that  effects  should  be  made  to  spring  from  direct 
causes  —  that  objects  should  be  attained  through  means 
best  adapted  for  their  attainment  —  no  one  as  yet  hav- 
ing been  weak  enough  to  deny  that  the  peculiar  eleva- 
tion alluded  to  is  most  readily  attained  in  the  poem. 
Now  the  object,  Truth,  or  the  satisfaction  of  the  intel- 
lect, and  the  object  Passion,  or  the  excitement  of  the 
heart,  are,  although  attainable,  to  a  certain  extent,  in 
poetry,  far  more  readily  attainable  in  prose.  Truth,  in 
fact,  demands  a  precision,  and  Passion  a  homeliness  (the 
truly  passionate  will  comprehend  me)  which  are  abso- 
lutely antagonistic  to  that  Beauty  which,  I  maintain,  is 
the  excitement,  or  pleasurable  elevation,  of  the  soul.  It 
by  no  means  follows  from  any  thing  here  said,  that  pas- 
sion, or  even  truth,  may  not  be  introduced,  and  even 
profitably  introduced,  into  a  poem  —  for  they  may  serve 
in  elucidation,  or  aid  the  general  effect,  as  do  discords  in 
music,  by  contrast  —  but  the  true  artist  will  always 
contrive,  first,  to  tone  them  into  proper  subservience  to 


120    PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

the  predominant  aim,  and,  secondly,  to  enveil  them,  as 
far  as  possible,  in  that  Beauty  which  is  the  atmosphere 
and  the  essence  of  the  poem. 

Regarding,  then,  Beauty  as  my  province,  my  next 
question  referred  to  the  tone  of  its  highest  manifestation 
—  and  all  experience  has  shown  that  this  tone  is  one  of 
sadness.  Beauty  of  whatever  kind,  in  its  supreme  de- 
velopment, invariably  excites  the  sensitive  soul  to  tears. 
Melancholy  is  thus  the  most  legitimate  of  all  the  poetical 
tones. 

The  length,  the  province,  and  the  tone,  being  thus 
determined,  I  betook  myself  to  ordinary  induction,  with 
the  view  of  obtaining  some  artistic  piquancy  which 
might  serve  me  as  a  key-note  in  the  construction  of  the 
poem  —  some  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  structure 
might  turn.  In  carefully  thinking  over  all  the  usual 
artistic  effects  —  or  more  properly  points ,  in  the  theat- 
rical sense  —  I  did  not  fail  to  perceive  immediately 
that  no  one  had  been  so  universally  employed  as  that  of 
the  refrain.  The  universality  of  its  employment  sufficed 
to  assure  me  of  its  intrinsic  value,  and  spared  me  the 
necessity  of  submitting  it  to  analysis.  I  considered  it, 
however,  with  regard  to  its  susceptibility  of  improve- 
ment, and  soon  saw  it  to  be  in  a  primitive  condition. 
As  commonly  used,  the  refrain,  or  burden,  not  only  is 
limited  to  lyric  verse,  but  depends  for  its  impression 
upon  the  force  of  monotone  —  both  in  sound  and 
thought.  The  pleasure  is  deduced  solely  from  the  sense 
of  identity —  of  repetition.  I  resolved  to  diversify,  and 
so  heighten,  the  effect,  by  adhering,  in  general,  to  the 
monotone  of  sound,  while  I  continually  varied  that  of 
thought:  that  is  to  say,  I  determined  to  produce  con- 
tinuously novel  effects,  by  the  variation  of  the  applica- 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  121 

tion  of  the  refrain  —  the  refrain  itself  remaining,  for  the 
most  part,  unvaried. 

These  points  being  settled,  I  next  bethought  me  of 
the  nature  of  my  refrain.  Since  its  application  was  to  be 
repeatedly  varied,  it  was  clear  that  the  refrain  itself 
must  be  brief,  for  there  would  have  been  an  insur- 
mountable difficulty  in  frequent  variations  of  applica- 
tion in  any  sentence  of  length.  In  proportion  to  the 
brevity  of  the  sentence,  would,  of  course,  be  the  facility 
of  the  variation.  This  led  me  at  once  to  a  single  word  as 
the  best  refrain. 

The  question  now  arose  as  to  the  character  of  the  word. 
Having  made  up  my  mind  to  a  refrain,  the  division  of 
the  poem  into  stanzas  was,  of  course,  a  corollary:  the 
refrain  forming  the  close  of  each  stanza.  That  such  a 
close,  to  have  force,  must  be  sonorous  and  susceptible  of 
protracted  emphasis,  admitted  no  doubt:  and  these 
considerations  inevitably  led  me  to  the  long  0  as  the 
most  sonorous  vowel,  in  connection  with  r  as  the  most 
producible  consonant. 

The  sound  of  the  refrain  being  thus  determined,  it  be- 
came necessary  to  select  a  word  embodying  this  sound, 
and  at  the  same  time  in  the  fullest  possible  keeping  with 
that  melancholy  which  I  had  predetermined  as  the  tone 
of  the  poem.  In  such  a  search  it  would  have  been  ab- 
solutely impossible  to  overlook  the  word  "Nevermore." 
In  fact,  it  was  the  very  first  which  presented  itself. 

The  next  desideratum  was  a  pretext  for  the  continu- 
ous use  of  the  one  word  "  nevermore."  In  observing  the 
difficulty  which  I  at  once  found  in  inventing  a  suffi- 
ciently plausible  reason  for  its  continuous  repetition,  I 
did  not  fail  to  perceive  that  this  difficulty  arose  solely 
from  the  pre-assumption  that  the  word  was  to  be  so  con- 


122    PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

tinuously  or  monotonously  spoken  by  a  human  being  — 
I  did  not  fail  to  perceive,  in  short,  that  the  difficulty  lay 
in  the  reconciliation  of  this  monotony  with  the  exercise 
of  reason  on  the  part  of  the  creature  repeating  the  word. 
Here,  then,  immediately  arose  the  idea  of  a  wcw-reason- 
ing  creature  capable  of  speech;  and,  very  naturally,  a 
parrot,  in  the  first  instance,  suggested  itself,  but  was 
superseded  forthwith  by  a  Raven,  as  equally  capable  of 
speech,  and  infinitely  more  in  keeping  with  the  intended 
tone. 

I  had  now  gone  so  far  as  the  conception  of  a  Raven  — 
the  bird  of  ill  omen  —  monotonously  repeating  the  one 
word,  "Nevermore,"  at  the  conclusion  of  each  stanza, 
in  a  poem  of  melancholy  tone,  and  in  length  about  one 
hundred  lines.  Now,  never  losing  sight  of  the  object 
supremeness,  or  perfection,  at  all  points,  I  asked  myself 
—  "Of  all  melancholy  topics,  what,  according  to  the 
universal  understanding  of  mankind,  is  the  most  melan- 
choly? "  Death  —  was  the  obvious  reply.  "And 
when,"  I  said,  "is  this  most  melancholy  of  topics  most 
poetical?  "  From  what  I  have  already  explained  at 
some  length,  the  answer,  here  also,  is  obvious  —  "When 
it  most  closely  allies  itself  to  Beauty:  the  death,  then,  of 
a  beautiful  woman  is,  unquestionably,  the  most  poetical 
topic  in  the  world  —  and  equally  is  it  beyond  doubt 
that  the  lips  best  suited  tor  such  topic  are  those  of  a 
bereaved  lover." 

I  had  now  to  combine  the  two  ideas,  of  a  lover  lament- 
ing his  deceased  mistress  and  a  Raven  continuously  re- 
peating the  word  "Nevermore."  I  had  to  combine 
these,  bearing  in  mind  my  design  of  varying,  at  every 
turn,  the  application  of  the  word  repeated;  but  the  only 
intelligible  mode  of  such  combination  is  that  of  imagin- 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  123 

ing  the  Raven  employing  the  word  in  answer  to  the 
queries  of  the  lover.  And  here  it  was  that  I  saw  at  once 
the  opportunity  afforded  for  the  effect  on  which  I  had 
been  depending  —  that  is  to  say,  the  effect  of  the  varia- 
tion of  application.  I  saw  that  I  could  make  the  first 
query  propounded  by  the  lover  —  the  first  query  to 
which  the  Raven  should  reply  "Nevermore"  —  that  I 
could  make  this  first  query  a  commonplace  one  —  the 
second  less  so  —  the  third  still  less,  and  so  on  —  until  at 
length  the  lover,  startled  from  his  original  nonchalance 
by  the  melancholy  character  of  the  word  itself —  by  its 
frequent  repetition  —  and  by  a  consideration  of  the 
ominous  reputation  of  the  fowl  that  uttered  it  —  is  at 
length  excited  to  superstition,  and  wildly  propounds 
queries  of  a  far  different  character —  queries  whose  solu- 
tion he  has  passionately  at  heart — propounds  them 
half  in  superstition  and  half  in  that  species  of  despair 
which  delights  in  self-torture  —  propounds  them  not 
altogether  because  he  believes  in  the  prophetic  or  de- 
moniac character  of  the  bird  (which,  reason  assures  him, 
is  merely  repeating  a  lesson  learned  by  rote)  but  because 
he  experiences  a  phrenzied  pleasure  in  so  modeling  his 
questions  as  to  receive  from  the  expected  "Nevermore" 
the  most  delicious  because  the  most  intolerable  of  sor- 
row. Perceiving  the  opportunity  thus  afforded  me  —  or, 
more  strictly,  thus  forced  upon  me  in  the  progress  of  the 
construction — I  first  established  in  mind  the  climax,  or 
concluding  query — that  query  to  which  "Never- 
more" should  be  in  the  last  place  an  answer —  that  in 
reply  to  which  this  word  "Nevermore"  should  involve 
the  utmost  conceivable  amount  of  sorrow  and  despair. 

Here  then  the  poem  may  be  said  to  have  its  beginning 
—  at  the  end,  where  all  works  of  art  should  begin  —  for 


1 24    PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

it  was  here,  at  this  point  of  my  preconsiderations,  that 
I  first  put  pen  to  paper  in  the  composition  of  the 
stanza: 

"  Prophet,"  said  I,  "  thing  of  evil !  prophet  still  if  bird  or  devil ! 
By  that  heaven  that  bends  above  us  —  by  that  God  we  both 

adore, 
Tell  this  soul  with  sorrow  laden,  if  within  the  distant  Aidenn, 
It   shall    clasp    a   sainted   maiden   whom    the   angels   name 

Lenore  — 
Clasp  a   rare  and  radiant  maiden  whom    the  angels   name 
Lenore." 

Quoth  the  raven  "Nevermore." 

I  composed  this  stanza,  at  this  point,  first  that,  by 
establishing  the  climax,  I  might  the  better  vary  and 
graduate,  as  regards  seriousness  and  importance,  the 
preceding  queries  of  the  lover  —  and,  secondly,  that  I 
might  definitely  settle  the  rhythm,  the  metre,  and  the 
length  and  general  arrangement  of  the  stanza  —  as  well 
as  graduate  the  stanzas  which  were  to  precede,  so  that 
none  of  them  might  surpass  this  in  rhythmical  effect. 
Had  I  been  able,  in  the  subsequent  composition,  to  con- 
struct more  vigorous  stanzas,  I  should,  without  scruple, 
have  purposely  enfeebled  them,  so  as  not  to  interfere 
with  the  climacteric  effect. 

And  here  I  may  as  well  say  a  few  words  of  the  versifi- 
cation. My  first  object  (as  usual)  was  originality.  The 
extent  to  which  this  has  been  neglected,  in  versification, 
is  one  of  the  most  unaccountable  things  in  the  world. 
Admitting  that  there  is  little  possibility  of  variety  in 
mere  rhythm,  it  is  still  clear  that  the  possible  varieties  of 
metre  and  stanza  are  absolutely  infinite —  and  yet,  for 
centuries,  no  man,  in  verse,  has  ever  done,  or  ever  seemed  to 
think  of  doing,  an  original  thing.    The  fact  is,  that  orig- 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  125 

inality  (unless  in  minds  of  very  unusual  force)  is  by  no 
means  a  matter,  as  some  suppose,  of  impulse  or  intui- 
tion. In  general,  to  be  found,  it  must  be  elaborately 
sought,  and  although  a  positive  merit  of  the  highest 
class,  demands  in  its  attainment  less  of  invention  than 
negation. 

Of  course,  I  pretend  to  no  originality  in  either  the 
rhythm  or  metre  of  the  "  Raven."  The  former  is  tro- 
chaic —  the  latter  is  octameter  acatalectic,  alternating 
with  heptameter  catalectic  repeated  in  the  refrain  of  the 
fifth  verse,  and  terminating  with  tetrameter  catalectic. 
Less  pedantically  —  the  feet  employed  throughout 
(trochees)  consist  of  a  long  syllable  followed  by  a  short: 
the  first  line  of  the  stanza  consists  of  eight  of  these  feet 

—  the  second  of  seven  and  a  half  (in  effect  two-thirds) 

—  the  third  of  eight  —  the  fourth  of  seven  and  a  half  — 
the  fifth  the  same  —  the  sixth  three  and  a  half.  Now, 
each  of  these  lines,  taken  individually,  has  been  em- 
ployed before,  and  what  originality  the  "  Raven"  has,  is 
in  their  combination  into  stanza;  nothing  even  remotely 
approaching  this  combination  has  ever  been  attempted. 
The  effect  of  this  originality  of  combination  is  aided  by 
other  unusual,  and  some  altogether  novel  effects,  arising 
from  an  extension  of  the  application  of  the  principles  of 
rhyme  and  alliteration. 

The  next  point  to  be  considered  was  the  mode  of 
bringing  together  the  lover  and  the  Raven —  and  the 
first  branch  of  this  consideration  was  the  locale.  For 
this  the  most  natural  suggestion  might  seem  to  be  a 
forest,  or  the  fields  —  but  it  has  always  appeared  to  me 
that  a  close  circumscription  of  space  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  effect  of  insulated  incident:  —  it  has  the 
force  of  a  frame  to  a  picture.    It  has  an  indisputable 


126    PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

moral  power  in  keeping  concentrated  the  attention,  and, 
of  course,  must  not  be  confounded  with  mere  unity  of 
place. 

I  determined,  then,  to  place  the  lover  in  his  chamber 
—  in  a  chamber  rendered  sacred  to  him  by  memories  of 
her  who  had  frequented  it.  The  room  is  represented  as 
richly  furnished  —  this  in  mere  pursuance  of  the  ideas  I 
have  already  explained  on  the  subject  of  Beauty,  as  the 
sole  true  poetical  thesis. 

The  locale  being  thus  determined,  I  had  now  to  intro- 
duce the  bird  —  and  the  thought  of  introducing  him 
through  the  window,  was  inevitable.  The  idea  of  mak- 
ing the  lover  suppose,  in  the  first  instance,  that  the 
flapping  of  the  wings  of  the  bird  against  the  shutter  is  a 
"tapping"  at  the  door,  originated  in  a  wish  to  increase, 
by  prolonging,  the  reader's  curiosity,  and  in  a  desire  to 
admit  the  incidental  effect  arising  from  the  lover's 
throwing  open  the  door,  finding  all  dark,  and  thence 
adopting  the  half-fancy  that  it  was  the  spirit  of  his 
mistress  that  knocked. 

I  made  the  night  tempestuous,  first,  to  account  for  the 
Raven's  seeking  admission,  and  secondly,  for  the  effect 
of  contrast  with  the  (physical)  serenity  within  the 
chamber. 

I  made  the  bird  alight  on  the  bust  of  Pallas,  also  for 
the  effect  of  contrast  between  the  marble  and  the  plum- 
age —  it  being  understood  that  the  bust  was  abso- 
lutely suggested  by  the  bird  —  the  bust  of  Pallas  being 
chosen,  first,  as  most  in  keeping  with  the  scholarship  of 
the  lover,  and,  secondly,  for  the  sonorousness  of  the 
word,  Pallas,  itself. 

About  the  middle  of  the  poem,  also,  I  have  availed 
myself  of  the  force  of  contrast,  with  a  view  of  deepening 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  127 

the  ultimate  impression.  For  example,  an  air  of  the 
fantastic  —  approaching  as  nearly  to  the  ludicrous  as 
was  admissible  —  is  given  to  the  Raven's  entrance.  He 
comes  in  "with  many  a  flirt  and  flutter." 

Not  the  least  obeisance  made  he  —  not  a  moment  stopped  or 

stayed  he, 
But  with  mien  of  lord  or  lady,  perched  above  my  chamber  door. 

In  the  two  stanzas  which  follow,  the  design  is  more 
obviously  carried  out:  — 

Then  this  ebony  bird  beguiling  my  sad  fancy  into  smiling 
By  the  grave  and  stern  decorum  of  the  countenance  it  wore, 
"Though  thy  crest  be  shorn  and  shaven  thou,"  I  said,  "art  sure 

no  craven, 
Ghastly  grim  and  ancient  Raven  wandering  from  the  nightly 

shore  — 
Tell  me  what  thy  lordly  name  is  on  the  Night's  Plutonian 
shore?  " 
Quoth  the  Raven  "Nevermore." 

Much  I  marvelled  this  ungainly  fowl  to  hear  discourse  so 

plainly 
Though  its  answer  little  meaning  —  little  relevancy  bore; 
For  we  cannot  help  agreeing  that  no  living  human  being 
Ever  yet  was  blessed  with  seeing  bird  above  his  chamber  door  — 
Bird  or  beast  upon  the  sculptured  bust  above  his  chamber  door, 
With  such  name  as  "Nevermore." 

The  effect  of  the  denouement  being  thus  provided  for, 
I  immediately  drop  the  fantastic  for  a  tone  of  the  most 
profound  seriousness: — this  tone  commencing  in  the 
stanza  directly  following  the  one  last  quoted,  with  the 
line, 

But  the  Raven,  sitting  lonely  on  that  placid  bust,  spoke  only, 

etc. 


128     PHILOSOPHY  OF  COMPOSITION 

From  this  epoch  the  lover  no  longer  jests  —  no  longer 
sees  any  thing  even  of  the  fantastic  in  the  Raven's 
demeanor.  He  speaks  of  him  as  a  "grim,  ungainly, 
ghastly,  gaunt,  and  ominous  bird  of  yore,"  and  feels  the 
"fiery  eyes"  burning  into  his  "bosom's  core."  This 
revolution  of  thought,  or  fancy,  on  the  lover's  part,  is 
intended  to  induce  a  similar  one  on  the  part  of  the 
reader  —  to  bring  the  mind  into  a  proper  frame  for  the 
denouement  —  which  is  now  brought  about  as  rapidly 
and  as  directly  as  possible. 

With  the  denouement  proper — with  the  Raven's 
reply,  "Nevermore,"  to  the  lover's  final  demand  if  he 
shall  meet  his  mistress  in  another  world  —  the  poem,  in 
its  obvious  phase,  that  of  a  simple  narrative,  may  be 
said  to  have  its  completion.  So  far,  every  thing  is 
within  the  limits  of  the  accountable  —  of  the  real.  A 
raven,  having  learned  by  rote  the  single  word  "Never- 
more," and  having  escaped  from  the  custody  of  its 
owner,  is  driven  at  midnight,  through  the  violence  of  a 
storm,  to  seek  admission  at  a  window  from  which  a 
light  still  gleams  —  the  chamber-window  of  a  student, 
occupied  half  in  poring  over  a  volume,  half  in  dreaming 
of  a  beloved  mistress  deceased.  The  casement  being 
thrown  open  at  the  fluttering  of  the  bird's  wings,  the 
bird  itself  perches  on  the  most  convenient  seat  out  of 
the  immediate  reach  of  the  student,  who,  amused  by 
the  incident  and  the  oddity  of  the  visitor's  demeanor, 
demands  of  it,  in  jest  and  without  looking  for  a  reply, 
its  name.  The  raven  addressed,  answers  with  its  cus- 
tomary word,  "Nevermore" — a  word  which  finds 
immediate  ech  oin  the  melancholy  heart  of  the  student, 
who,  giving  utterance  aloud  to  certain  thoughts  sug- 
gested by  the  occasion,  is  again  startled  by  the  fowl's 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  129 

repetition  of  "Nevermore."  The  student  now  guesses 
the  state  of  the  case,  but  is  impelled,  as  I  have  before 
explained,  by  the  human  thirst  for  self-torture,  and  in 
part  by  superstition,  to  propound  such  queries  to  the 
bird  as  will  bring  him,  the  lover,  the  most  of  the  luxury 
of  sorrow,  through  the  anticipated  answer  "Never- 
more." With  the  indulgence,  to  the  extreme,  of  this 
self-torture,  the  narration,  in  what  I  have  termed  its 
first  or  obvious  phase,  has  a  natural  termination,  and 
so  far  there  has  been  no  overstepping  of  the  limits  of 
the  real. 

But  in  subjects  so  handled,  however  skilfully,  or  with 
however  vivid  an  array  of  incident,  there  is  always  a 
certain  hardness  or  nakedness,  which  repels  the  artisti- 
cal  eye.  Two  things  are  invariably  required  —  first, 
some  amount  of  complexity,  or  more  properly,  adapta- 
tion; and,  secondly,  some  amount  of  suggestiveness  — 
some  under-current,  however  indefinite,  of  meaning. 
It  is  this  latter,  in  especial,  which  imparts  to  a  work  of 
art  so  much  of  that  richness  (to  borrow  from  colloquy  a 
forcible  term)  which  we  are  too  fond  of  confounding 
with  the  ideal.  It  is  the  excess  of  the  suggested  meaning 
—  it  is  the  rendering  this  the  upper  instead  of  the  under 
current  of  the  theme  —  which  turns  into  prose  (and  that 
of  the  very  flattest  kind)  the  so  called  poetry  of  the  so 
called  transcendentalists. 

Holding  these  opinions,  I  added  the  two  concluding 
stanzas  of  the  poem  —  their  suggestiveness  being  thus 
made  to  pervade  all  the  narrative  which  has  preceded 
them.  The  under-current  of  meaning  is  rendered  first 
apparent  in  the  lines  — 

"Take  thy  beak  from  out  my  heart,  and  take  thy  form  from  off 

my  door!  " 

Quoth  the  Raven  "Nevermore!  " 


i3o  MARGINALIA 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  words,  "from  out  my 
heart,"  involve  the  first  metaphorical  expression  in  the 
poem.  They,  with  the  answer,  "Nevermore,"  dispose 
the  mind  to  seek  a  moral  in  all  that  has  been  previously 
narrated.  The  reader  begins  now  to  regard  the  Raven 
as  emblematical  —  but  it  is  not  until  the  very  last  line 
of  the  very  last  stanza,  that  the  intention  of  making  him 
emblematical  of  Mournful  and  Never-ending  Remem- 
brance is  permitted  distinctly  to  be  seen: 

And  the  Raven,  never  flitting,  still  is  sitting,  still  is  sitting, 
On  the  pallid  bust  of  Pallas,  just  above  my  chamber  door; 
And  his  eyes  have  all  the  seeming  of  a  demon's  that  is  dream- 
ing, 
And  the  lamplight  o'er  him  streaming  throws  his  shadow  on 

the  floor; 

And  my  soul/row  out  that  shadow  that  lies  floating  on  the  floor 

Shall  be  lifted  —  nevermore. 


MARGINALIA 

SOME  Frenchman,  possibly  Montaigne,  says:  "Peo- 
ple talk  about  thinking,  but  for  my  part  I  never 
think,  except  when  I  sit  down  to  write."  It  is  this  never 
thinking,  unless  when  we  sit  down  to  write,  which  is  the 
cause  of  so  much  indifferent  composition.  But  perhaps 
there  is  something  more  involved  in  the  Frenchman's 
observation  than  meets  the  eye.  It  is  certain  that  the 
mere  act  of  inditing  tends,  in  a  great  degree,  to  the  local- 
ization of  thought.  Whenever,  on  account  of  its  vague- 
ness, I  am  dissatisfied  with  a  conception  of  the  brain,  I 
resort  forthwith  to  the  pen,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining, 
through  its  aid,  the  necessary  form,  consequence,  and 
precision. 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  131 

How  very  commonly  we  hear  it  remarked  that  such 
and  such  thoughts  are  beyond  the  compass  of  words! 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  thought,  properly  so  called,  is 
out  of  the  reach  of  language.  I  fancy,  rather,  that  where 
difficulty  in  expression  is  experienced,  there  is,  in  the 
intellect  which  experiences  it,  a  want  either  of  delib- 
erateness  or  of  method.  For  my  own  part  I  have  never 
had  a  thought  which  I  could  not  set  down  in  words  with 
even  more  distinctness  than  that  with  which  I  con- 
ceived it;  as  I  have  before  observed,  the  thought  is 
logicalized  by  the  effort  at  (written)  expression.  There 
is,  however,  a  class  of  fancies  of  exquisite  delicacy, 
which  are  not  thoughts,  and  to  which,  as  yet,  I  have 
found  it  absolutely  impossible  to  adapt  language.  I  use 
the  word  "fancies"  at  random,  and  merely  because  I 
must  use  some  word;  but  the  idea  commonly  attached  to 
the  term  is  not  even  remotely  applicable  to  the  shadows 
of  shadows  in  question.  They  seem  to  me  rather  phys- 
ical than  intellectual.  They  arise  in  the  soul  (alas,  how 
rarely!)  only  at  its  epochs  of  most  intense  tranquillity, 
when  the  bodily  and  mental  health  are  in  perfection, 
and  at  those  mere  points  of  time  where  the  confines  of 
the  waking  world  blend  with  those  of  the  world  of 
dreams.  I  am  aware  of  these  "fancies"  only  when  I  am 
upon  the  very  brink  of  sleep,  with  the  consciousness 
that  I  am  so.  I  have  satisfied  myself  that  this  condition 
exists  but  for  an  inappreciable  point  of  time,  yet  it  is 
crowded  with  these  "shadows  of  shadows";  and  for  abso- 
lute thought  there  is  demanded  time's  endurance.  These 
"fancies"  have  in  them  a  pleasurable  ecstasy,  as  far 
beyond  the  most  pleasurable  of  the  world  of  wakefulness 
or  of  dreams  as  the  heaven  of  the  Northman  theology  is 
beyond  its  hell.   I  regard  the  visions,  even  as  they  arise, 


132  MARGINALIA 

with  an  awe  which,  in  some  measure,  moderates  or 
tranquillizes  the  ecstasy;  I  so  regard  them  through  a 
conviction  (which  seems  a  portion  of  the  ecstasy  itself) 
that  this  ecstasy,  in  itself,  is  of  a  character  supernal  to 
human  nature  —  is  a  glimpse  of  the  spirit's  outer  world; 
and  I  arrive  at  this  conclusion,  if  this  term  is  at  all  ap- 
plicable to  instantaneous  intuition,  by  a  perception  that 
the  delight  experienced  has,  as  its  element,  but  the 
absoluteness  of  novelty.  I  say  the  "  absoluteness,"  for 
in  these  fancies  —  let  me  now  term  them  psychal  im- 
pressions —  there  is  really  nothing  even  approximate  in 
character  to  impressions  ordinarily  received.  It  is  as  if 
the  five  senses  were  supplanted  by  five  myriad  others 
alien  to  mortality. 

Now,  so  entire  is  my  faith  in  the  power  of  words,  that, 
at  times,  I  have  believed  it  possible  to  embody  even  the 
evanescence  of  fancies  such  as  I  have  attempted  to  de- 
scribe. In  experiments  with  this  end  in  view,  I  have 
proceeded  so  far  as,  first,  to  control  (when  the  bodily 
and  mental  health  are  good)  the  existence  of  the  con- 
dition; that  is  to  say,  I  can  now  (unless  when  ill)  be  sure 
that  the  condition  will  supervene,  if  I  so  wish  it,  at  the 
point  of  time  already  described;  of  its  supervention, 
until  lately,  I  could  never  be  certain,  even  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances.  I  mean  to  say,  merely, 
that  now  I  can  be  sure,  when  all  circumstances  are 
favorable,  of  the  supervention  of  the  condition,  and  feel 
even  the  capacity  of  inducing  or  compelling  it;  the 
favorable  circumstances,  however,  are  not  the  less  rare, 
else  had  I  compelled,  already,  the  heaven  into  the  earth. 

I  have  proceeded  so  far,  secondly,  as  to  prevent  the 
lapse  from  the  point  of  which  I  speak,  the  point  of 
blending  between  wakefulness  and  sleep  —  as  to  pre- 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  133 

vent  at  will,  I  say,  the  lapse  from  this  border-ground 
into  the  dominion  of  sleep.  Not  that  I  can  continue  the 
condition,  not  that  I  can  render  the  point  more  than  a 
point,  but  I  can  startle  myself  from  the  point  into  wake- 
fulness, and  thus  transfer  the  point  itself  into  the  realm 
of  memory;  convey  its  impressions,  or  more  properly 
their  recollections,  to  a  situation  where  (although  still 
for  a  very  brief  period)  I  can  survey  them  with  the  eye 
of  analysis.  For  these  reasons,  that  is  to  say,  because  I 
have  been  enabled  to  accomplish  thus  much,  I  do  not 
altogether  despair  of  embodying  in  words  at  least 
enough  of  the  fancies  in  question  to  convey  to  certain 
classes  of  intellect  a  shadowy  conception  of  their  char- 
acter. In  saying  this  I  am  not  to  be  understood  as  sup- 
posing that  the  fancies,  or  psychal  impressions,  to  which 
I  allude,  are  confined  to  my  individual  self —  are  not, 
in  a  word,  common  to  all  mankind,  for  on  this  point  it  is 
quite  impossible  that  I  should  form  an  opinion;  but 
nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  even  a  partial 
record  of  the  impressions  would  startle  the  universal 
intellect  of  mankind  by  the  supremeness  of  the  novelty 
of  the  material  employed,  and  of  its  consequent  sug- 
gestions. In  a  word,  should  I  ever  write  a  paper  on  this 
topic,  the  world  will  be  compelled  to  acknowledge  that, 
at  last,  I  have  done  an  original  thing. 


That  punctuation  is  important  all  agree;  but  how  few 
comprehend  the  extent  of  its  importance!  The  writer 
who  neglects  punctuation,  or  mispunctuates,  is  liable  to 
be  misunderstood;  this,  according  to  the  popular  idea,  is 
the  sum  of  evils  arising  from  heedlessness  or  ignorance. 
It  does  not  seem  to  be  known  that,  even  where  the  sense 


134  MARGINALIA 

is  perfectly  clear,  a  sentence  may  be  deprived  of  half  its 
force,  its  spirit,  its  point,  by  improper  punctuations. 
For  the  want  of  merely  a  comma,  it  often  occurs  that  an 
axiom  appears  a  paradox,  or  that  a  sarcasm  is  con- 
verted into  a  sermonoid.  There  is  no  treatise  on  the 
topic,  and  there  is  no  topic  on  which  a  treatise  is  more 
needed.  There  seems  to  exist  a  vulgar  notion  that  the 
subject  is  one  of  pure  conventionality,  and  cannot  be 
brought  within  the  limits  of  intelligible  and  consistent 
rule.  And  yet,  if  fairly  looked  in  the  face,  the  whole 
matter  is  so  plain  that  its  rationale  may  be  read  as  we 
run.  If  not  anticipated,  I  shall,  hereafter,  make  an  at- 
tempt at  a  magazine  paper  on  "The  Philosophy  of 
Point."  In  the  meantime  let  me  say  a  word  or  two  of  the 
dash.  Every  writer  for  the  press,  who  has  any  sense  of 
the  accurate,  must  have  been  frequently  mortified  and 
vexed  at  the  distortion  of  his  sentences  by  the  printer's 
now  general  substitution  of  a  semicolon  or  comma  for 
the  dash  of  the  manuscript.  The  total  or  nearly  total 
disuse  of  the  latter  point  has  been  brought  about  by  the 
revulsion  consequent  upon  its  excessive  employment 
about  twenty  years  ago.  The  Byronic  poets  were  all 
dash.  John  Neal,  in  his  earlier  novels,  exaggerated  its 
use  into  the  grossest  abuse,  although  his  very  error 
arose  from  the  philosophical  and  self-dependent  spirit 
which  has  always  distinguished  him,  and  which  will 
even  yet  lead  him,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken  in  the 
man,  to  do  something  for  the  literature  of  the  country 
which  the  country  "will  not  willingly,"  and  cannot 
possibly,  "  let  die."  Without  entering  now  into  the  why, 
let  me  observe  that  the  printer  may  always  ascertain 
when  the  dash  of  the  manuscript  is  properly  and  when 
improperly  employed  by  bearing  in  mind  that  this  point 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  135 

represents  a  second  thought  —  an  emendation.  In 
using  it  just  above  I  have  exemplified  its  use.  The 
words,  "  an  emendation,"  are,  speaking  with  reference  to 
grammatical  construction,  put  in  apposition  with  the 
words  "  a  second  thought."  Having  written  these  latter 
words,  I  reflected  whether  it  would  not  be  possible  to 
render  their  meaning  more  distinct  by  certain  other 
words.  Now,  instead  of  erasing  the  phrase,  "  a  second 
thought,"  which  is  of  some  use,  which  partially  conveys 
the  idea  intended  —  which  advances  me  a  step  toward 
my  full  purpose  —  I  suffer  it  to  remain,  and  merely  put 
a  dash  between  it  and  the  phrase,  "an  emendation." 
The  dash  gives  the  reader  a  choice  between  two,  or 
among  three  or  more  expressions,  one  of  which  may 
help  out  the  idea.  It  stands,  in  general,  for  these  words, 
"or,  to  make  my  meaning  more  distinct."  This  force 
it  has,  and  this  force  no  other  point  can  have;  since  all 
other  points  have  well-understood  uses  quite  different 
from  this.  Therefore  the  dash  cannot  be  dispensed  with. 
It  has  its  phases,  its  variation  of  the  force  described;  but 
the  one  principle  —  that  of  a  second  thought  or  emenda- 
tion —  will  be  found  at  the  bottom  of  all. 


Men  of  genius  are  far  more  abundant  than  is  sup- 
posed. In  fact,  to  appreciate  thoroughly  the  work  of 
what  we  call  genius  is  to  possess  all  the  genius  by  which 
the  work  was  produced.  But  the  person  appreciating 
may  be  utterly  incompetent  to  reproduce  the  work,  or 
anything  similar,  and  this  solely  through  lack  of  what 
may  be  termed  the  constructive  ability,  a  matter  quite 
independent  of  what  we  agree  to  understand  in  the 
term  "genius"  itself.    This  ability  is  based,  to  be  sure, 


136  MARGINALIA 

in  great  part,  upon  the  faculty  of  analysis,  enabling  the 
artist  to  get  full  view  of  the  machinery  of  his  proposed 
effect,  and  thus  work  it  and  regulate  it  at  will;  but  a 
great  deal  depends  also  upon  properties  strictly  moral; 
for  example,  upon  patience,  upon  concentrativeness,  or 
the  power  of  holding  the  attention  steadily  to  the  one 
purpose,  upon  self-dependence  and  contempt  for  all 
opinion  which  is  opinion  and  no  more  —  in  especial, 
upon  energy  or  industry.  So  vitally  important  is  this 
last,  that  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  anything  to  which 
we  have  been  accustomed  to  give  the  title  of  a  "  work  of 
genius"  was  ever  accomplished  without  it;  and  it  is 
chiefly  because  this  quality  and  genius  are  nearly  in- 
compatible that  ''works  of  genius"  are  few,  while  mere 
men  of  genius  are,  as  I  say,  abundant.  The  Romans, 
who  excelled  us  in  acuteness  of  observation  while  falling 
below  us  in  induction  from  facts  observed,  seem  to  have 
been  so  fully  aware  of  the  inseparable  connection  be- 
tween industry  and  a  "work  of  genius"  as  to  have 
adopted  the  error  that  industry,  in  great  measure,  was 
genius  itself.  The  highest  compliment  is  intended  by  a 
Roman,  when,  of  an  epic,  or  anything  similar,  he  says 
that  it  is  written  industria  mirabili  or  incredibili  indus- 
tria. 

The  pure  imagination  chooses,  from  either  beauty  or 
deformity,  only  the  most  combinable  things  hitherto 
uncombined;  the  compound,  as  a  general  rule,  partak- 
ing, in  character  of  beauty  or  sublimity,  in  the  ratio  of 
the  respective  beauty  or  sublimity  of  the  things  com- 
bined, which  are  themselves  still  to  be  considered  as 
atomic,  that  is  to  say,  as  previous  combinations.  But, 
as  often  analogously  happens  in  physical  chemistry,  so 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  137 

not  unfrequently  does  it  occur  in  this  chemistry  of  the 
intellect,  that  the  admixture  of  two  elements  results  in 
a  something  that  has  nothing  of  the  qualities  of  one  of 
them,  or  even  nothing  of  the  qualities  of  either.  .  .  . 
Thus  the  range  of  imagination  is  unlimited.  Its  ma- 
terials extend  throughout  the  universe.  Even  out  of 
deformities  it  fabricates  that  beauty  which  is  at  once 
its  sole  object  and  its  inevitable  test.  But,  in  general, 
the  richness  or  force  of  the  matters  combined,  the 
facility  of  discovering  combinable  novelties  worth  com- 
bining, and,  especially,  the  absolute  "chemical  com- 
bination" of  the  completed  mass,  are  the  particulars  to 
be  regarded  in  our  estimate  of  imagination.  It  is  this 
thorough  harmony  of  an  imaginative  work  which  so 
often  causes  it  to  be  undervalued  by  the  thoughtless, 
through  the  character  of  obviousness  which  is  super- 
induced. We  are  apt  to  find  ourselves  asking  why  it  is 
that  these  combinations  have  never  been  imagined 
before. 


JUDGMENTS  OF  AUTHORS i 

GEORGE  ELIOT 
1819-1880 

"Judgments  of  Authors"  is  one  of  the  short  papers  published 
in  Leaves  from  a  Notebook,  1884.  George  Eliot's  fragmentary 
papers  throw  much  light  on  an  author's  ways  of  estimating 
literary  value. 

IN  endeavoring  to  estimate  a  remarkable  writer  who 
aimed  at  more  than  temporary  influence,  we  have 
first  to  consider  what  was  his  individual  contribution  to 
the  spiritual  wealth  of  mankind.  Had  he  a  new  con- 
ception? Did  he  animate  long-known  but  neglected 
truths  with  new  vigour,  and  cast  fresh  light  on  their  re- 
lation to  other  admitted  truths?  Did  he  impregnate 
any  ideas  with  a  fresh  store  of  emotion,  and  in  this  way 
enlarge  the  area  of  moral  sentiment?  Did  he,  by  a  wise 
emphasis  here,  and  a  wise  disregard  there,  give  a  more 
useful  or  beautiful  proportion  to  aims  or  motives? 
And  even  where  his  thinking  was  most  mixed  with  the 
sort  of  mistake  which  is  obvious  to  the  majority,  as 
well  as  that  which  can  only  be  discerned  by  the  in- 
structed, or  made  manifest  by  the  progress  of  things, 
has  it  that  salt  of  a  noble  enthusiasm  which  should  re- 
buke our  critical  discrimination  if  its  correctness  is  in- 
spired with  a  less  admirable  habit  of  feeling? 

This  is  not  the  common  or  easy  course  to  take  in 
estimating  a  modern  writer.  It  requires  considerable 
knowledge  of  what  he  has  himself  done,  as  well  as  of 
what  others  have  done  before  him,  or  what  they  were 

1  Copyright  by  William  Blackwood  and  Sons,  Edinburgh,  Scot- 
land.    Reprinted  by  permission. 

138 


GEORGE  ELIOT  139 

doing  contemporaneously;  it  requires  deliberate  reflec- 
tion as  to  the  degree  in  which  our  own  prejudices  may 
hinder  us  from  appreciating  the  intellectual  or  moral 
bearing  of  what  on  a  first  view  offends  us.  An  easier 
course  is  to  notice  some  salient  mistakes,  and  to  take 
them  as  decisive  of  the  writer's  incompetence;  or  to  find 
out  that  something  apparently  much  the  same  as  what 
he  has  said  in  some  connection  not  clearly  ascertained 
had  been  said  by  somebody  else,  though  without  great 
effect,  until  this  new  effect  of  discrediting  the  other's 
originality  had  shown  itself  as  an  adequate  final  cause; 
or  to  pronounce  from  the  point  of  view  of  individual 
taste  that  this  writer  for  whom  regard  is  claimed  is  re- 
pulsive, wearisome,  not  to  be  borne  except  by  those  dull 
persons  who  are  of  a  different  opinion. 

Elder  writers  who  have  passed  into  classics  were 
doubtless  treated  in  this  easy  way  when  they  were  still 
under  the  misfortune  of  being  recent  —  nay,  are  still 
dismissed  with  the  same  rapidity  of  judgment  by  daring 
ignorance.  But  people  who  think  that  they  have  a 
reputation  to  lose  in  the  matter  of  knowledge  have 
looked  into  cyclopaedias  and  histories  of  philosophy  or 
literature,  and  possessed  themselves  of  the  duly  bal- 
anced epithets  concerning  the  immortals.  They  are  not 
left  to  their  own  unguided  rashness,  or  their  own  un- 
guided  pusillanimity.  And  it  is  this  sheeplike  flock  who 
have  no  direct  impressions,  no  spontaneous  delight,  no 
genuine  objection  or  self-confessed  neutrality  in  relation 
to  the  writers  become  classic  —  it  is  these  who  are  in- 
capable of  passing  a  genuine  judgment  on  the  living. 
Necessarily.  The  susceptibility  they  have  kept  active 
is  a  susceptibility  to  their  own  reputation  for  passing  the 
right  judgment,  not  the  susceptibility  to  qualities  in  the 


i4o         JUDGMENTS  OF  AUTHORS 

object  of  judgment.  Who  learns  to  discriminate  shades 
of  colour  by  considering  what  is  expected  of  him?  The 
habit  of  expressing  borrowed  judgments  stupefies  the 
sensibilities,  which  are  the  only  foundation  of  genuine 
judgments,  just  as  the  constant  reading  and  retailing  of 
results  from  other  men's  observations  through  the  micro- 
scope, without  ever  looking  through  the  lens  one's  self, 
is  an  instruction  in  some  truths  and  some  prejudices, 
but  is  no  instruction  in  observant  susceptibility;  on  the 
contrary,  it  breeds  a  habit  of  inward  seeing  according  to 
verbal  statement,  which  dulls  the  power  of  outward 
seeing  according  to  visual  evidence. 

On  this  subject,  as  on  so  many  others,  it  is  difficult  to 
strike  the  balance  between  the  educational  needs  of 
passivity  or  receptivity,  and  independent  selection. 
We  should  learn  nothing  without  the  tendency  to  im- 
plicit acceptance;  but  there  must  clearly  be  a  limit  to 
such  mental  submission,  else  we  should  come  to  a 
standstill.  The  human  mind  would  be  no  better  than 
a  dried  specimen  representing  an  unchangeable  type. 
When  the  assimilation  of  new  matter  ceases,  decay 
must  begin.  In  a  reasoned  self-restraining  deference 
there  is  as  much  energy  as  in  rebellion;  but  among  the 
less  capable,  one  must  admit  that  the  superior  energy  is 
on  the  side  of  the  rebels.  And  certainly  a  man  who  dares 
to  say  that  he  finds  an  eminent  classic  feeble  here,  ex- 
travagant there,  and  in  general  overrated,  may  chance 
to  give  an  opinion  which  has  some  genuine  discrimina- 
tion in  it  concerning  a  new  work  or  a  living  thinker,  — 
an  opinion  such  as  can  hardly  ever  be  got  from  the 
reputed  judge  who  is  a  correct  echo  of  the  most  ap- 
proved phrases  concerning  those  who  have  been  already 
canonized. 


SIMPLICITY  IN  ART* 

FRANK  NORMS 

i 870-1 902 

This  brief  paper  is  reprinted  from  the  volume  entitled  The 
Responsibilities  of  the  Novelist  (Doubleday,  Page  and  Com- 
pany, 1903).  Frank  Norris  is  best  known  as  the  author  of  The 
Octopus  and  The  Pit,  two  parts  of  the  unfinished  trilogy, 
"The  Epic  of  the  Wheat";  but  his  numerous  informal  papers, 
brought  together  in  The  Responsibilities  of  the  Novelist,  are 
deserving  of  a  place  in  every  student's  working  library. 

ONCE  upon  a  time  I  had  occasion  to  buy  so  unin- 
teresting a  thing  as  a  silver  soup-ladle.  The 
salesman  at  the  silversmith's  was  obliging  and  for  my 
inspection  brought  forth  quite  an  array  of  ladles.  But 
my  purse  was  flaccid,  anemic,  and  I  must  pick  and 
choose  with  all  the  discrimination  in  the  world.  I 
wanted  to  make  a  brave  showing  with  my  gift  —  to  get 
a  great  deal  for  my  money.  I  went  through  a  world  of 
soup-ladles  —  ladles  with  gilded  bowls,  with  embossed 
handles,  with  chased  arabesques,  but  there  were  none 
to  my  taste.  "Or  perhaps,"  says  the  salesman,  "you 
would  care  to  look  at  something  like  this,"  and  he 
brought  out  a  ladle  that  was  as  plain  and  as  unadorned 
as  the  unclouded  sky  —  and  about  as  beautiful.  Of  all 
the  others  this  was  the  most  to  my  liking.  But  the 
price!  ah,  that  anemic  purse;  and  I  must  put  it  from  me! 
It  was  nearly  double  the  cost  of  any  of  the  rest.  And 
when  I  asked  why,  the  salesman  said: 

"You  see,  in  this  highly  ornamental  ware  the  flaws  of 
the  material  don't  show,  and  you  can  cover  up  a  blow- 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company. 

141 


i42  SIMPLICITY  IN  ART 

hole  or  the  like  by  wreaths  and  beading.  But  this  plain 
ware  has  got  to  be  the  very  best.  Every  defect  is  ap- 
parent." 

And  there,  if  you  please,  is  a  conclusive  comment 
upon  the  whole  business  —  a  final  basis  of  comparison 
of  all  things  whether  commercial  or  artistic;  the  bare 
dignity  of  the  unadorned  that  may  stand  before  the 
world  all  unashamed,  panoplied  rather  than  clothed  in 
the  consciousness  of  perfection.  We  of  this  latter  day, 
we  painters  and  poets  and  writers  —  artists  —  must 
labour  with  all  the  wits  of  us,  all  the  strength  of  us,  and 
with  all  that  we  have  of  ingenuity  and  perseverance  to 
attain  simplicity.  But  it  has  not  always  been  so.  At 
the  very  earliest,  men  —  forgotten,  ordinary  men  — 
were  born  with  an  easy,  unblurred  vision  that  to-day 
we  would  hail  as  marvelous  genius.  Suppose,  for  in- 
stance, the  New  Testament  was  all  unwritten  and  one 
of  us  were  called  upon  to  tell  the  world  that  Christ  was 
born,  to  tell  of  how  we  had  seen  Him,  that  this  was  the 
Messiah.  How  the  adjectives  would  marshal  upon  the 
page,  how  the  exclamatory  phrases  would  cry  out,  how 
we  would  elaborate  and  elaborate,  and  how  our  rhetoric 
would  flare  and  blazen  till  ■ —  so  we  should  imagine  — 
the  ear  would  ring  and  the  very  eye  would  be  dazzled; 
and  even  then  we  would  believe  that  our  words  were  all 
so  few  and  feeble.  It  is  beyond  words,  we  would  vocifer- 
ate. So  it  would  be.  That  is  very  true  —  words  of  ours. 
Can  you  not  see  how  we  should  dramatize  it  ?  We 
would  make  a  point  of  the  transcendent  stillness  of  the 
hour,  of  the  deep  blue  of  the  Judean  midnight,  of  the 
liplapping  of  Galilee,  the  murmur  of  Jordan,  the  peace- 
fulness  of  sleeping  Jerusalem.  Then  the  stars,  the 
descent  of  the  angel,  the  shepherds  —  all   the  acces- 


FRANK  NORRIS  143 

sories.  And  our  narrative  would  be  as  commensurate 
with  the  subject  as  the  flippant  smartness  of  a  "bright" 
reporter  in  the  Sistine  chapel.  We  would  be  striving  to 
cover  up  our  innate  incompetence,  our  impotence  to  do 
justice  to  the  mighty  theme  by  elaborateness  of  design 
and  arabesque  intricacy  of  rhetoric. 

But  on  the  other  hand  —  listen: 

"The  days  were  accomplished  that  she  should  be  de- 
livered, and  she  brought  forth  her  first  born  son  and 
wrapped  him  in  swaddling  clothes  and  laid  him  in  a  man- 
ger, because  there  was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn." 

Simplicity  could  go  no  further.  Absolutely  not  one 
word  unessential,  not  a  single  adjective  that  is  not 
merely  descriptive.  The  whole  matter  stated  with  the 
terseness  of  a  military  report,  and  yet —  there  is  the 
epic,  the  world  epic,  beautiful,  majestic,  incomparably 
dignified,  and  no  ready  writer,  no  Milton  nor  Shak- 
spere,  with  all  the  wealth  of  their  vocabularies,  with  all 
the  resources  of  their  genius,  with  all  their  power  of 
simile  or  metaphor,  their  pomp  of  eloquence  or  their 
royal  pageantry  of  hexameters,  could  produce  the  effect 
contained  in  these  two  simple  declarative  sentences. 

The  mistake  that  we  little  people  are  so  prone  to  make 
is  this:  that  the  more  intense  the  emotional  quality  of 
the  scene  described,  the  more  "vivid,"  the  more  exalted, 
the  more  richly  coloured  we  suppose  should  be  the 
language. 

When  the  crisis  of  the  tale  is  reached  there  is  where 
we  like  the  author  to  spread  himself,  to  show  the  effec- 
tiveness of  his  treatment.  But  if  we  would  only  pause 
to  take  a  moment's  thought  we  must  surely  see  that  the 
simplest,  even  the  barest  statement  of  fact  is  not  only 
all-sufficient  but  all-appropriate. 


i44  SIMPLICITY  IN  ART 

Elaborate  phrase,  rhetoric,  the  intimacy  of  metaphor 
and  allegory  and  simile  is  forgivable  for  the  unimportant 
episodes  where  the  interest  of  the  narrative  is  languid; 
where  we  are  willing  to  watch  the  author's  ingenuity  in 
the  matter  of  scrolls  and  fretwork  and  mosaics-rococo 
work.  But  when  the  catastrophe  comes,  when  the  nar- 
rative swings  clear  upon  its  pivot  and  we  are  lifted  with 
it  from  out  the  world  of  our  surroundings,  we  want  to 
forget  the  author.  We  want  no  adjectives  to  blur  our 
substantives.  The  substantives  may  now  speak  for 
themselves.  We  want  no  metaphor,  no  simile  to  make 
clear  the  matter.  If  at  this  moment  of  drama  and  in- 
tensity the  matter  is  not  of  itself  preeminently  clear,  no 
verbiage,  however  ingenious,  will  clarify  it.  Heighten 
the  effect.  Does  exclamation  and  heroics  on  the  part  of 
the  bystanders  ever  make  the  curbstone  drama  more 
poignant?  Who  would  care  to  see  Niagara  through 
coloured  fire  and  calcium  lights? 

The  simple  treatment,  whether  of  a  piece  of  silver- 
smith work  or  of  a  momentous  religious  epic,  is  always 
the  most  difficult  of  all.  It  demands  more  of  the  artist. 
The  unskilful  story-teller  as  often  as  not  tells  the  story 
to  himself  as  well  as  to  his  hearers  as  he  goes  along.  Not 
sure  of  exactly  how  he  is  to  reach  the  end,  not  sure  even 
of  the  end  itself,  he  must  feel  his  way  from  incident  to 
incident,  from  page  to  page,  fumbling,  using  many 
words,  repeating  himself.  To  hide  the  confusion  there 
is  one  resource  —  elaboration,  exaggerated  outline,  vio- 
lent colour,  till  at  last  the  unstable  outline  disappears 
under  the  accumulation,  and  the  reader  is  to  be  so 
dazzled  with  the  wit  of  the  dialogue,  the  smartness  of 
the  repartee,  the  felicity  of  the  diction,  that  he  will  not 
see  the  gaps  and  lapses  in  the  structure  itself  —  just  as 


FRANK  NORRIS  145 

the  "nobby"  drummer  wears  a  wide  and  showy  scarf  to 
conceal  a  soiled  shirt-bosom. 

But  in  the  master-works  of  narrative  there  is  none  of 
this  shamming,  no  shoddyism,  no  humbug.  There  is 
little  more  than  bare  outline,  but  in  the  care  with  which 
it  is  drawn,  how  much  thought,  what  infinite  pains  go  to 
the  making  of  each  stroke,  so  that  when  it  is  made  it 
falls  just  at  the  right  place  and  exactly  in  its  right 
sequence.  This  attained,  what  need  is  there  for  more  ? 
Comment  is  superfluous.  If  the  author  make  the  scene 
appear  terrible  to  the  reader,  he  need  not  say  in  himself 
or  in  the  mouth  of  some  protagonist,  "It  is  terrible!" 
If  the  picture  is  pathetic  so  that  he  who  reads  must 
weep,  how  superfluous,  how  intrusive  should  the  author 
exclaim,  "  It  was  pitiful  to  the  point  of  tears."  If 
beautiful,  we  do  not  want  him  to  tell  us  so.  We  want 
him  to  make  it  beautiful  and  our  own  appreciation  will 
supply  the  adjectives. 

Beauty,  the  ultimate  philosophical  beauty,  is  not  a 
thing  of  elaboration,  but  on  the  contrary  of  an  almost 
barren  nudity:  a  jewel  may  be  an  exquisite  gem,  a 
woman  may  have  a  beautiful  arm,  but  the  bracelet  does 
not  make  the  arm  more  beautiful,  nor  the  arm  the 
bracelet.  One  must  admire  them  separately,  and  the 
moment  that  the  jewel  ceases  to  have  a  value  or  a  reason 
upon  the  arm  it  is  better  in  the  case,  where  it  may  enjoy 
an  undivided  attention. 

But  after  so  many  hundreds  of  years  of  art  and  artists, 
of  civilization  and  progress,  we  have  got  so  far  away 
from  the  sane  old  homely  uncomplex  way  of  looking  out 
at  the  world  that  the  simple  things  no  longer  charm,  and 
the  simple  declarative  sentence,  straightforward,  plain, 
seems  flat  to  our  intellectual  palate  —  flat  and  tasteless 
and  crude. 


146  SIMPLICITY  IN  ART 

What  we  would  now  call  simple  our  forbears  would 
look  upon  as  a  farrago  of  gimcrackery,  and  all  our  art 
—  the  art  of  the  better-minded  of  us  —  is  only  a  striving 
to  get  back  to  the  unblurred,  direct  simplicity  of  those 
writers  who  could  see  that  the  Wonderful,  the  Counse- 
lor, the  mighty  God,  the  Prince  of  Peace,  could  be  laid 
in  a  manger  and  yet  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

It  is  this  same  spirit,  this  disdaining  of  simplicity 
that  has  so  warped  and  inflated  The  First  Story,  making 
of  it  a  pomp,  an  affair  of  gold-embroidered  vestments 
and  costly  choirs,  of  marbles,  of  jeweled  windows  and  of 
incense,  unable  to  find  the  thrill  as  formerly  in  the  plain 
and  humble  stable,  and  the  brown-haired,  grave-eyed 
peasant  girl,  with  her  little  baby;  unable  to  see  the 
beauty  in  the  crumbling  mud  walls,  the  low-ceiled  in- 
terior, where  the  only  incense  was  the  sweet  smell  of  the 
cow's  breath,  the  only  vestments  the  swaddling  clothes, 
rough,  coarse-fibered,  from  the  hand-looms  of  Nazareth, 
the  only  pomp  the  scanty  gifts  of  three  old  men,  and  the 
only  chanting  the  crooning  of  a  young  mother  holding 
her  first-born  babe  upon  her  breast. 


LANGUAGE  AND  THE  MAN> 

JOHN  RUSKIN 

i 819-1900 

This  passage  is  from  Ruskin's  lecture  on  "The  Relation  of 
Art  to  Morals."  It  was  published  as  one  of  the  chapters  of  his 
Lectures  on  Art,  1870. 

\  ND  this  it  was  that  I  called  upon  you  to  hear,  say- 
ii.  ing,  "listen  to  me  at  least  now,"  in  the  first  lecture, 
namely,  that  no  art-teaching  could  be  of  use  to  you,  but 
would  rather  be  harmful,  unless  it  was  grafted  on  some- 
thing deeper  than  all  art.  For  indeed  not  only  with  this, 
of  which  it  is  my  function  to  show  you  the  laws,  but 
much  more  with  the  art  of  all  men,  which  you  came  here 
chiefly  to  learn,  that  of  language,  the  chief  vices  of  edu- 
cation have  arisen  from  the  one  great  fallacy  of  suppos- 
ing that  noble  language  is  a  communicable  trick  of 
grammar  and  accent,  instead  of  simply  the  careful  ex- 
pression of  right  thought.  All  the  virtues  of  language 
are,  in  their  roots,  moral;  it  becomes  accurate  if  the 
speaker  desires  to  be  true;  clear  if  he  speaks  with  sym- 
pathy and  a  desire  to  be  intelligible;  powerful,  if  he  has 
earnestness;  pleasant,  if  he  has  sense  of  rhythm  and 
order.  There  are  no  other  virtues  of  language  pro- 
ducible by  art  than  these:  but  let  me  mark  more  deeply 
for  an  instant  the  significance  of  one  of  them.  Language, 
I  said,  is  only  clear  when  it  is  sympathetic.  You  can,  in 
truth,  understand  a  man's  word  only  by  understanding 
his  temper.    Your  own  word  is  also  as  of  an  unknown 

1  Copyright  by  George  Allen  and  Unwin,  Ltd.,  London,  England. 
—  Ruskin  Literary  Trustees  and  Publishers.  Reprinted  by  permis- 
sion. 

147 


148        LANGUAGE  AND  THE  MAN 

tongue  to  him  unless  he  understands  yours.  And  this  it 
is  that  makes  the  art  of  language,  if  any  one  is  to  be 
chosen  separately  from  the  rest,  that  which  is  fittest  for 
the  instrument  of  a  gentleman's  education.  To  teach  the 
meaning  of  a  word  thoroughly,  is  to  teach  the  nature  of 
the  spirit  that  coined  it;  the  secret  of  language  is  the 
secret  of  sympathy,  and  its  full  charm  is  possible  only  to 
the  gentle.  And  thus  the  principles  of  beautiful  speech 
have  all  been  fixed  by  sincere  and  kindly  speech.  On  the 
laws  which  have  been  determined  by  sincerity,  false 
speech,  apparently  beautiful,  may  afterwards  be  con- 
structed; but  all  such  utterance,  whether  in  oration  or 
poetry,  is  not  only  without  permanent  power,  but  it  is 
destructive  of  the  principles  it  has  usurped.  So  long  as 
no  words  are  uttered  but  in  faithfulness,  so  long  the  art 
of  language  goes  on  exalting  itself;  but  the  moment  it  is 
shaped  and  chiselled  on  external  principles,  it  falls  into 
frivolity,  and  perishes.  And  this  truth  would  have  been 
long  ago  manifest,  had  it  not  been  that  in  periods  of 
advanced  academical  science  there  is  always  a  tendency 
to  deny  the  sincerity  of  the  first  masters  of  language. 
Once  learn  to  write  gracefully  in  the  manner  of  an 
ancient  author,  and  we  are  apt  to  think  that  he  also 
wrote  in  the  manner  of  some  one  else.  But  no  noble  nor 
right  style  was  ever  yet  founded  but  out  of  a  sincere 
heart. 

No  man  is  worth  reading  to  form  your  style,  who  does 
not  mean  what  he  says;  nor  was  any  great  style  ever  in- 
vented but  by  some  man  who  meant  what  he  said.  Find 
out  the  beginning  of  a  great  manner  of  writing,  and  you 
have  also  found  the  declarer  of  some  true  facts  or  sincere 
passions:  and  your  whole  method  of  reading  will  thus  be 
quickened,  for,  being  sure  that  your  author  really  meant 


JOHN  RUSKIN  149 

what  he  said,  you  will  be  much  more  careful  to  ascertain 
what  it  is  that  he  means. 

And  of  yet  greater  importance  is  it  deeply  to  know 
that  every  beauty  possessed  by  the  language  of  a  nation 
is  significant  of  the  innermost  laws  of  its  being.  Keep 
the  temper  of  the  people  stern  and  manly;  make  their 
associations  grave,  courteous,  and  for  worthy  objects; 
occupy  them  in  just  deeds;  and  their  tongue  must  needs 
be  a  grand  one.  Nor  is  it  possible,  therefore  —  observe 
the  necessary  reflected  action  —  that  any  tongue 
should  be  a  noble  one,  of  which  the  words  are  not  so 
many  trumpet-calls  to  action.  All  great  languages  in- 
variably utter  great  things,  and  command  them;  they 
cannot  be  mimicked  but  by  obedience;  the  breath  of 
them  is  inspiration  because  it  is  not  only  vocal,  but 
vital;  and  you  can  only  learn  to  speak  as  these  men 
spoke,  by  becoming  what  these  men  were. 


THE  MORALITY  OF  THE  PRO- 
FESSION OF  LETTERS^ 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

i 850-1 894 

This  literary  creed  of  Stevenson's  was  first  published  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  April,  1881. 

THE  profession  of  letters  has  been  lately  debated 
in  the  public  prints;  and  it  has  been  debated,  to 
put  the  matter  mildly,  from  a  point  of  view  that  was 
calculated  to  surprise  high-minded  men,  and  bring  a 
general  contempt  on  books  and  reading.  Some  time  ago, 
in  particular,  a  lively,  pleasant,  popular  writer2  de- 
voted an  essay,  lively  and  pleasant  like  himself,  to  a 
very  encouraging  view  of  the  profession.  We  may  be 
glad  that  his  experience  is  so  cheering,  and  we  may  hope 
that  all  others,  who  deserve  it,  shall  be  as  handsomely 
rewarded;  but  I  do  not  think  we  need  be  at  all  glad  to 
have  this  question,  so  important  to  the  public  and  our- 
selves, debated  solely  on  the  ground  of  money.  The 
salary  in  any  business  under  heaven  is  not  the  only,  nor 
indeed  the  first,  question.  That  you  should  continue  to 
exist  is  a  matter  for  your  own  consideration;  but  that 
your  business  should  be  first  honest,  and  second  useful, 
are  points  in  which  honour  and  morality  are  concerned. 
If  the  writer  to  whom  I  refer  succeeds  in  persuading  a 
number  of  young  persons  to  adopt  this  way  of  life  with 
an  eye  set  singly  on  the  livelihood,  we  must  expect  them 

1  Copyright    by   Chatto   and   Windus,   London,   England.     Re- 
printed by  permission. 

2  Mr.  James  Payn. 

150 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        151 

in  their  works  to  follow  profit  only,  and  we  must  expect 
in  consequence,  if  he  will  pardon  me  the  epithets,  a 
slovenly,  base,  untrue,  and  empty  literature.  Of  that 
writer  himself  I  am  not  speaking:  he  is  diligent,  clean, 
and  pleasing;  we  all  owe  him  periods  of  entertainment, 
and  he  has  achieved  an  amiable  popularity  which  he  has 
adequately  deserved.  But  the  truth  is,  he  does  not,  or 
did  not  when  he  first  embraced  it,  regard  his  profession 
from  this  purely  mercenary  side.  He  went  into  it,  I 
shall  venture  to  say,  if  not  with  any  noble  design,  at 
least  in  the  ardour  of  a  first  love;  and  he  enjoyed  its 
practice  long  before  he  paused  to  calculate  the  wage. 
The  other  day  an  author  was  complimented  on  a  piece  of 
work,  good  in  itself  and  exceptionally  good  for  him,  and 
replied,  in  terms  unworthy  of  a  commercial  traveller, 
that  as  the  book  was  not  briskly  selling  he  did  not  give  a 
copper  farthing  for  its  merit.  It  must  not  be  supposed 
that  the  person  to  whom  this  answer  was  addressed  re- 
ceived it  as  a  profession  of  faith;  he  knew,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  it  was  only  a  whiff  of  irritation;  just  as  we 
know,  when  a  respectable  writer  talks  of  literature  as  a 
way  of  life,  like  shoemaking,  but  not  so  useful,  that  he  is 
only  debating  one  aspect  of  a  question,  and  is  still 
clearly  conscious  of  a  dozen  others  more  important  in 
themselves  and  more  central  to  the  matter  in  hand. 
But  while  those  who  treat  literature  in  this  penny-wise 
and  virtue-foolish  spirit  are  themselves  truly  in  pos- 
session of  a  better  light,  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
treatment  is  decent  or  improving,  whether  for  them- 
selves or  others.  To  treat  all  subjects  in  the  highest,  the 
most  honourable,  and  the  pluckiest  spirit,  consistent 
with  the  fact,  is  the  first  duty  of  a  writer.  If  he  be  well 
paid,  as  I  am  glad  to  hear  he  is,  this  duty  becomes  the 


152  PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

more  urgent,  the  neglect  of  it  the  more  disgraceful. 
And  perhaps  there  is  no  subject  on  which  a  man  should 
speak  so  gravely  as  that  industry,  whatever  it  may  be, 
which  is  the  occupation  or  delight  of  his  life;  which  is  his 
tool  to  earn  or  serve  with;  and  which,  if  it  be  unworthy, 
stamps  himself  as  a  mere  incubus  of  dumb  and  greedy 
bowels  on  the  shoulders  of  labouring  humanity.  On 
that  subject  alone  even  to  force  the  note  might  lean  to 
virtue's  side.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  numerous  and 
enterprising  generation  of  writers  will  follow  and  surpass 
the  present  one;  but  it  would  be  better  if  the  stream 
were  stayed,  and  the  roll  of  our  old,  honest  English 
books  were  closed,  than  that  esurient  book-makers 
should  continue  and  debase  a  brave  tradition,  and 
lower,  in  their  own  eyes,  a  famous  race.  Better  that  our 
serene  temples  were  deserted  than  filled  with  trafficking 
and  juggling  priests. 

There  are  two  just  reasons  for  the  choice  of  any  way 
of  life:  the  first  is  inbred  taste  in  the  chooser;  the  second 
some  high  utility  in  the  industry  selected.  Literature, 
like  any  other  art,  is  singularly  interesting  to  the  artist; 
and,  in  a  degree  peculiar  to  itself  among  the  arts,  it  is 
useful  to  mankind.  These  are  the  sufficient  justifica- 
tions for  any  young  man  or  woman  who  adopts  it  as  the 
business  of  his  life.  I  shall  not  say  much  about  the 
wages.  A  writer  can  live  by  his  writing.  If  not  so  luxu- 
riously as  by  other  trades,  then  less  luxuriously.  The 
nature  of  the  work  he  does  all  day  will  more  affect  his 
happiness  than  the  quality  of  his  dinner  at  night.  What- 
ever be  your  calling,  and  however  much  it  brings  you  in 
the  year,  you  could  still,  you  know,  get  more  by  cheating. 
We  all  suffer  ourselves  to  be  too  much  concerned  about  a 
little  poverty;  but  such  considerations  should  not  move 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        153 

us  in  the  choice  of  that  which  is  to  be  the  business 
and  justification  of  so  great  a  portion  of  our  lives;  and 
like  the  missionary,  the  patriot,  or  the  philosopher,  we 
should  all  choose  that  poor  and  brave  career  in  which  we 
can  do  the  most  and  best  for  mankind.  Now  nature, 
faithfully  followed,  proves  herself  a  careful  mother.  A 
lad,  for  some  liking  to  the  jingle  of  words,  betakes  him- 
self to  letters  for  his  life;  by-and-by,  when  he  learns  more 
gravity,  he  finds  that  he  has  chosen  better  than  he 
knew;  that  if  he  earns  little,  he  is  earning  it  amply;  that 
if  he  receives  a  small  wage,  he  is  in  a  position  to  do  con- 
siderable services;  that  it  is  his  power,  in  some  small 
measure,  to  protect  the  oppressed  and  to  defend  the 
truth.  So  kindly  is  the  world  arranged,  such  great  profit 
may  arise  from  a  small  degree  of  human  reliance  on  one- 
self, and  such,  in  particular,  is  the  happy  star  of  this 
trade  of  writing,  that  it  should  combine  pleasure  and 
profit  to  both  parties,  and  be  at  once  agreeable,  like 
fiddling,  and  useful,  like  good  preaching. 

This  is  to  speak  of  literature  at  its  highest;  and  with 
the  four  great  elders  who  are  still  spared  to  our  respect 
and  admiration,  with  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  Browning,  and 
Tennyson  before  us,  it  would  be  cowardly  to  consider  it 
at  first  in  any  lesser  aspect.  But  while  we  cannot  follow 
these  athletes,  while  we  may  none  of  us,  perhaps,  be 
very  vigorous,  very  original,  or  very  wise,  I  still  con- 
tend that,  in  the  humblest  sort  of  literary  work,  we 
have  it  in  our  power  either  to  do  great  harm  or  great 
good.  We  may  seek  merely  to  please;  we  may  seek, 
having  no  higher  gift,  merely  to  gratify  the  idle  nine 
days'  curiosity  of  our  contemporaries;  or  we  may  essay, 
however  feebly,  to  instruct.  In  each  of  these  we  shall 
have  to  deal  with  that  remarkable  art  of  words  which, 


154  PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

because  it  is  the  dialect  of  life,  comes  home  so  easily  and 
powerfully  to  the  minds  of  men;  and  since  that  is  so,  we 
contribute,  in  each  of  these  branches,  to  build  up  the 
sum  of  sentiments  and  appreciations  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  Public  Opinion  or  Public  Feeling.  The  total  of 
a  nation's  reading,  in  these  days  of  daily  papers,  greatly 
modifies  the  total  of  the  nation's  speech;  and  the  speech 
and  reading,  taken  together,  form  the  efficient  educa- 
tional medium  of  youth.  A  good  man  or  woman  may 
keep  a  youth  some  little  while  in  clearer  air;  but  the  con- 
temporary atmosphere  is  all-powerful  in  the  end  on  the 
average  of  mediocre  characters.  The  copious  Corin- 
thian baseness  of  the  American  reporter  or  the  Parisian 
chroniqueur,  both  so  lightly  readable,  must  exercise  an 
incalculable  influence  for  ill;  they  touch  upon  all  sub- 
jects, and  on  all  with  the  same  ungenerous  hand;  they 
begin  the  consideration  of  all,  in  young  and  unprepared 
minds,  in  an  unworthy  spirit;  on  all,  they  supply  some 
pungency  for  dull  people  to  quote.  The  mere  body  of 
this  ugly  matter  overwhelms  the  rare  utterances  of  good 
men;  the  sneering,  the  selfish,  and  the  cowardly  are 
scattered  in  broad  sheets  on  every  table,  while  the  anti- 
dote, in  small  volumes,  lies  unread  upon  the  shelf.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  American  and  the  French,  not  because 
they  are  so  much  baser,  but  so  much  more  readable, 
than  the  English;  their  evil  is  done  more  effectively, 
in  America  for  the  masses,  in  French  for  the  few  that 
care  to  read;  but  with  us  as  with  them,  the  duties  of 
literature  are  daily  neglected,  truth  daily  perverted 
and  suppressed,  and  grave  subjects  daily  degraded  in 
the  treatment.  The  journalist  is  not  reckoned  an  im- 
portant officer;  yet  judge  of  the  good  he  might  do,  the 
harm  he  does;  judge  of  it  by  one  instance  only:  that 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        155 

when  we  find  two  journals  on  the  reverse  sides  of  politics 
each,  on  the  same  day,  openly  garbling  a  piece  of  news 
for  the  interest  of  its  own  party,  we  smile  at  the  dis- 
covery (no  discovery  now!)  as  over  a  good  joke  and 
pardonable  stratagem.  Lying  so  open  is  scarce  lying,  it 
is  true;  but  one  of  the  things  that  we  profess  to  teach  our 
young  is  a  respect  for  truth;  and  I  cannot  think  this 
piece  of  education  will  be  crowned  with  any  great  suc- 
cess, so  long  as  some  of  us  practise  and  the  rest  openly 
approve  of  public  falsehood. 

There  are  two  duties  incumbent  upon  any  man  who 
enters  on  the  business  of  writing:  truth  to  the  fact  and  a 
good  spirit  in  the  treatment.  In  every  department  of 
literature,  though  so  low  as  hardly  to  deserve  the  name, 
truth  to  the  fact  is  of  importance  to  the  education  and 
comfort  of  mankind,  and  so  hard  to  preserve,  that  the 
faithful  trying  to  do  so  will  lend  some  dignity  to  the 
man  who  tries  it.  Our  judgments  are  based  upon  two 
things:  first,  upon  the  original  preferences  of  our  soul; 
but,  second,  upon  the  mass  of  testimony  to  the  nature 
of  God,  man,  and  the  universe  which  reaches  us,  in 
divers  manners,  from  without.  For  the  most  part  these 
divers  manners  are  reducible  to  one,  all  that  we  learn  of 
past  times  and  much  that  we  learn  of  our  own  reaching 
us  through  the  medium  of  books  or  papers,  and  even 
he  who  cannot  read  learning  from  the  same  source  at 
second-hand  and  by  the  report  of  him  who  can.  Thus 
the  sum  of  the  contemporary  knowledge  or  ignorance  of 
good  and  evil  is,  in  large  measure,  the  handiwork  of 
those  who  write.  Those  who  write  have  to  see  that  each 
man's  knowledge  is,  as  near  as  they  can  make  it,  an- 
swerable to  the  facts  of  life;  that  he  shall  not  suppose 
himself  an  angel  or  a  monster;  nor  take  this  world  for 


156         PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

a  hell;  nor  be  suffered  to  imagine  that  all  rights  are  con- 
centred in  his  own  caste  or  country,  or  all  veracities  in 
his  own  parochial  creed.  Each  man  should  learn  what  is 
within  him,  that  he  may  strive  to  mend;  he  must  be 
taught  what  is  without  him,  that  he  may  be  kind  to 
others.  It  can  never  be  wrong  to  tell  him  the  truth;  for, 
in  his  disputable  state,  weaving  as  he  goes  his  theory  of 
life,  steering  himself,  cheering  or  reproving  others,  all 
facts  are  of  the  first  importance  to  his  conduct;  and 
even  if  a  fact  shall  discourage  or  corrupt  him,  it  is  still 
best  that  he  should  know  it;  for  it  is  in  this  world  as  it  is, 
and  not  in  a  world  made  easy  by  educational  suppres- 
sions, that  he  must  win  his  way  to  shame  or  glory.  In 
one  word,  it  must  always  be  foul  to  tell  what  is  false; 
and  it  can  never  be  safe  to  suppress  what  is  true.  The 
very  fact  that  you  omit  may  be  the  fact  which  some- 
body was  wanting,  for  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's 
poison,  and  I  have  known  a  person  who  was  cheered  by 
the  perusal  of  Candide.  Every  fact  is  a  part  of  that 
great  puzzle  we  must  set  together;  and  none  that  comes 
directly  in  a  writer's  path  but  has  some  nice  relations, 
unperceivable  by  him,  to  the  totality  and  bearing  of  the 
subject  under  hand.  Yet  there  are  certain  classes  of  fact 
eternally  more  necessary  than  others,  and  it  is  with 
these  that  literature  must  first  bestir  itself.  They  are 
not  hard  to  distinguish,  nature  once  more  easily  leading 
us;  for  the  necessary,  because  the  efficacious,  facts  are 
those  which  are  most  interesting  to  the  natural  mind  of 
man.  Those  which  are  coloured,  picturesque,  human, 
and  rooted  in  morality,  and  those,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  are  clear,  indisputable,  and  a  part  of  science,  are 
alone  vital  in  importance,  seizing  by  their  interest,  or 
useful  to  communicate.   So  far  as  the  writer  merely  nar- 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        157 

rates,  he  should  principally  tell  of  these.  He  should  tell 
of  the  kind  and  wholesome  and  beautiful  elements  of 
our  life;  he  should  tell  unsparingly  of  the  evil  and  sor- 
row of  the  present,  to  move  us  with  instances;  he  should 
tell  of  wise  and  good  people  in  the  past,  to  excite  us  by 
example;  and  of  these  he  should  tell  soberly  and  truth- 
fully, not  glossing  faults,  that  we  may  neither  grow  dis- 
couraged with  ourselves  nor  exacting  to  our  neighbours. 
So  the  body  of  contemporary  literature,  ephemeral  and 
feeble  in  itself,  touches  in  the  minds  of  men  the  springs 
of  thought  and  kindness,  and  supports  them  (for  those 
who  will  go  at  all  are  easily  supported)  on  their  way  to 
what  is  true  and  right.  And  if,  in  any  degree,  it  does  so 
now,  how  much  more  might  it  do  so  if  the  writers  chose! 
There  is  not  a  life  in  all  the  records  of  the  past  but,  prop- 
erly studied,  might  lend  a  hint  and  a  help  to  some  con- 
temporary. There  is  not  a  juncture  in  to-day's  affairs 
but  some  useful  word  may  yet  be  said  of  it.  Even  the 
reporter  has  an  office,  and,  with  clear  eyes  and  honest 
language,  may  unveil  injustices  and  point  the  way  to 
progress.  And  for  a  last  word:  in  all  narration  there  is 
only  one  way  to  be  clever,  and  that  is  to  be  exact.  To 
be  vivid  is  a  secondary  quality  which  must  presuppose 
the  first;  for  vividly  to  convey  a  wrong  impression  is 
only  to  make  failure  conspicuous. 

But  a  fact  may  be  viewed  on  many  sides;  it  may  be 
chronicled  with  rage,  tears,  laughter,  indifference,  or 
admiration,  and  by  each  of  these  the  story  will  be  trans- 
formed to  something  else.  The  newspapers  that  told  of 
the  return  of  our  representatives  from  Berlin,  even  if 
they  had  not  differed  as  to  the  facts,  would  have  suffi- 
ciently differed  by  their  spirits;  so  that  the  one  descrip- 
tion would  have  been  a  second  ovation,  and  the  other  a 


158  PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

prolonged  insult.  The  subject  makes  but  a  trifling  part 
of  any  piece  of  literature,  and  the  view  of  the  writer  is 
itself  a  fact  more  important  because  less  disputable 
than  the  others.  Now  this  spirit  in  which  a  subject  is 
regarded,  important  in  all  kinds  of  literary  work,  be- 
comes all-important  in  works  of  fiction,  meditation,  or 
rhapsody;  for  there  it  not  only  colours  but  itself  chooses 
the  facts;  not  only  modifies  but  shapes  the  work.  And 
hence,  over  the  far  larger  proportion  of  the  field  of 
literature,  the  health  or  disease  of  the  writer's  mind  or 
momentary  humour  forms  not  only  the  leading  feature 
of  his  work,  but  is,  at  bottom,  the  only  thing  he  can 
communicate  to  others.  In  all  works  of  art,  widely 
speaking,  it  is  first  of  all  the  author's  attitude  that  is 
narrated,  though  in  the  attitude  there  be  implied  a 
whole  experience  and  a  theory  of  life.  An  author  who 
has  begged  the  question  and  reposes  in  some  narrow 
faith  cannot,  if  he  would,  express  the  whole  or  even 
many  of  the  sides  of  this  various  existence;  for,  his  own 
life  being  maim,  some  of  them  are  not  admitted  in  his 
theory,  and  were  only  dimly  and  unwillingly  recognised 
in  his  experience.  Hence  the  smallness,  the  triteness, 
and  the  inhumanity  in  works  of  merely  sectarian  re- 
ligion; and  hence  we  find  equal  although  unsimilar 
limitation  in  works  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  the  flesh  or 
the  despicable  taste  for  high  society.  So  that  the  first 
duty  of  any  man  who  is  to  write  is  intellectual.  De- 
signedly or  not,  he  has  so  far  set  himself  up  for  a  leader 
of  the  minds  of  men;  and  he  must  see  that  his  own  mind 
is  kept  supple,  charitable,  and  bright.  Everything  but 
prejudice  should  find  a  voice  through  him;  he  should  see 
the  good  in  all  things;  where  he  has  even  a  fear  that  he 
does  not  wholly  understand,  there  he  should  be  wholly 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        159 

silent;  and  he  should  recognise  from  the  first  that  he  has 
only  one  tool  in  his  workshop,  and  that  tool  is  sym- 
pathy.1 

The  second  duty,  far  harder  to  define,  is  moral. 
There  are  a  thousand  different  humours  in  the  mind, 
and  about  each  of  them,  when  it  is  uppermost,  some 
literature  tends  to  be  deposited.  Is  this  to  be  allowed? 
Not  certainly  in  every  case,  and  yet  perhaps  in  more 
than  rigourists  would  fancy.  It  were  to  be  desired  that 
all  literary  work,  and  chiefly  works  of  art,  issued  from 
sound,  human,  healthy,  and  potent  impulses,  whether 
grave  or  laughing,  humorous,  romantic,  or  religious. 
Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  some  valuable  books  are 
partially  insane;  some,  mostly  religious,  partially  inhu- 
man; and  very  many  tainted  with  morbidity  and  im- 
potence. We  do  not  loathe  a  masterpiece  although  we 
gird  against  its  blemishes.  We  are  not,  above  all,  to 
look  for  faults,  but  merits.  There  is  no  book  perfect, 
even  in  design;  but  there  are  many  that  will  delight, 
improve,  or  encourage  the  reader.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
Hebrew  psalms  are  the  only  religious  poetry  on  earth; 
yet  they  contain  sallies  that  savour  rankly  of  the  man  of 
blood.  On  the  other  hand,  Alfred  de  Musset  had  a 
poisoned  and  a  contorted  nature;  I  am  only  quoting  that 
generous  and  frivolous  giant,  old  Dumas,  when  I  accuse 
him  of  a  bad  heart;  yet,  when  the  impulse  under  which 
he  wrote  was  purely  creative,  he  could  give  us  works 
like  Carmosine  or  Fantasio,  in  which  the  last  note  of  the 

1  A  footnote,  at  least,  is  due  to  the  admirable  example  set  before  all 
young  writers  in  the  width  of  literary  sympathy  displayed  by  Mr. 
Swinburne.  He  runs  forth  to  welcome  merit,  whether  in  Dickens  or 
Trollope,  whether  in  Villon,  Milton,  or  Pope.  This  is,  in  criticism,  the 
attitude  we  should  all  seek  to  preserve,  not  only  in  that,  but  in  every 
branch  of  literary  work.  —  Author. 


160  PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

romantic  comedy  seems  to  have  been  found  again  to 
touch  and  please  us.  When  Flaubert  wrote  Madame 
Bovary,  I  believe  he  thought  chiefly  of  a  somewhat  mor- 
bid realism;  and  behold!  the  book  turned  in  his  hands 
into  a  masterpiece  of  appalling  morality.  But  the 
truth  is,  when  books  are  conceived  under  a  great  stress, 
with  a  soul  of  ninefold  power,  nine  times  heated  and 
electrified  by  effort,  the  conditions  of  our  being  are 
seized  with  such  an  ample  grasp,  that,  even  should  the 
main  design  be  trivial  or  base,  some  truth  and  beauty 
cannot  fail  to  be  expressed.  Out  of  the  strong  comes 
forth  sweetness;  but  an  ill  thing  poorly  done  is  an  ill 
thing  top  and  bottom.  And  so  this  can  be  no  encourage- 
ment to  knock-kneed,  feeble- wristed  scribes,  who  must 
take  their  business  conscientiously  or  be  ashamed  to 
practise  it. 

Man  is  imperfect;  yet,  in  his  literature,  he  must  ex- 
press himself  and  his  own  views  and  preferences;  for  to 
do  anything  else  is  to  do  a  far  more  perilous  thing  than 
to  risk  being  immoral:  it  is  to  be  sure  of  being  untrue. 
To  ape  a  sentiment,  even  a  good  one,  is  to  travesty  a 
sentiment;  that  will  not  be  helpful.  To  conceal  a  senti- 
ment, if  you  are  sure  you  hold  it,  is  to  take  a  liberty 
with  truth.  There  is  probably  no  point  of  view  possible 
to  a  sane  man  but  contains  some  truth  and,  in  the  true 
connection,  might  be  profitable  to  the  race.  T  am  not 
afraid  of  the  truth,  if  any  one  could  tell  it  me,  but  I  am 
afraid  of  parts  of  it  impertinently  uttered.  There  is  a 
time  to  dance  and  a  time  to  mourn;  to  be  harsh  as  well 
as  to  be  sentimental;  to  be  ascetic  as  well  as  to  glorify 
the  appetites;  and  if  a  man  were  to  combine  all  these 
extremes  into  his  work,  each  in  its  place  and  proportion, 
that  work  would  be  the  world's  masterpiece  of  morality 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        161 

as  well  as  of  art.  Partiality  is  immorality;  for  any  book 
is  wrong  that  gives  a  misleading  picture  of  the  world 
and  life.  The  trouble  is  that  the  weakling  must  be  par- 
tial; the  work  of  one  proving  dank  and  depressing;  of 
another,  cheap  and  vulgar;  of  a  third,  epileptically 
sensual;  of  a  fourth,  sourly  ascetic.  In  literature  as  in 
conduct,  you  can  never  hope  to  do  exactly  right.  All 
you  can  do  is  to  make  as  sure  as  possible;  and  for  that 
there  is  but  one  rule.  Nothing  should  be  done  in  a 
hurry  that  can  be  done  slowly.  It  is  no  use  to  write  a 
book  and  put  it  by  for  nine  or  even  ninety  years;  for  in 
the  writing  you  will  have  partly  convinced  yourself; 
the  delay  must  precede  any  beginning;  and  if  you  medi- 
tate a  work  of  art,  you  should  first  long  roll  the  subject 
under  the  tongue  to  make  sure  you  like  the  flavour, 
before  you  brew  a  volume  that  shall  taste  of  it  from  end 
to  end;  or  if  you  propose  to  enter  on  the  field  of  con- 
troversy, you  should  first  have  thought  upon  the  ques- 
tion under  all  conditions,  in  health  as  well  as  in  sickness, 
in  sorrow  as  well  as  in  joy.  It  is  this  nearness  of  exam- 
ination necessary  for  any  true  and  kind  writing,  that 
makes  the  practice  of  the  art  a  prolonged  and  noble 
education  for  the  writer. 

There  is  plenty  to  do,  plenty  to  say,  or  to  say  over 
again,  in  the  meantime.  Any  literary  work  which  con- 
veys faithful  facts  or  pleasing  impressions  is  a  service  to 
the  public.  It  is  even  a  service  to  be  thankfully  proud  of 
having  rendered.  The  slightest  novels  are  a  blessing  to 
those  in  distress,  not  chloroform  itself  a  greater.  Our 
fine  old  sea-captain's  life  was  justified  when  Carlyle 
soothed  his  mind  with  The  Kings  Own  or  Newton 
Forster.  To  please  is  to  serve;  and  so  far  from  its  being 
difficult  to  instruct  while  you  amuse,  it  is  difficult  to  do 


1 62         PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS 

the  one  thoroughly  without  the  other.  Some  part  of  the 
writer  or  his  life  will  crop  out  in  even  a  vapid  book;  and 
to  read  a  novel  that  was  conceived  with  any  force  is  to 
multiply  experience  and  to  exercise  the  sympathies. 
Every  article,  every  piece  of  verse,  every  essay,  every 
entre-fiiety  is  destined  to  pass,  however  swiftly,  through 
the  minds  of  some  portion  of  the  public,  and  to  colour, 
however  transiently,  their  thoughts.  When  any  subject 
falls  to  be  discussed,  some  scribbler  on  a  paper  has  the 
invaluable  opportunity  of  beginning  its  discussion  in  a 
dignified  and  human  spirit;  and  if  there  were  enough 
who  did  so  in  our  public  press,  neither  the  public  nor 
the  Parliament  would  find  it  in  their  minds  to  drop  to 
meaner  thoughts.  The  writer  has  the  chance  to  stumble, 
by  the  way,  on  something  pleasing,  something  interest- 
ing, something  encouraging,  were  it  only  to  a  single 
reader.  He  will  be  unfortunate,  indeed,  if  he  suit  no  one. 
He  has  the  chance,  besides,  to  stumble  on  something 
that  a  dull  person  shall  be  able  to  comprehend;  and  for 
a  dull  person  to  have  read  anything  and,  for  that  once, 
comprehended  it,  makes  a  marking  epoch  in  his  educa- 
tion. 

Here,  then,  is  work  worth  doing  and  worth  trying  to 
do  well.  And  so,  if  I  were  minded  to  welcome  any  great 
accession  to  our  trade,  it  should  not  be  from  any  reason 
of  a  higher  wage,  but  because  it  was  a  trade  which  was 
useful  in  a  very  great  and  in  a  very  high  degree;  which 
every  honest  tradesman  could  make  more  serviceable  to 
mankind  in  his  single  strength;  which  was  difficult  to  do 
well  and  possible  to  do  better  every  year;  which  called 
for  scrupulous  thought  on  the  part  of  all  who  practised 
it,  and  hence  became  a  perpetual  education  to  their 
nobler  natures;  and  which,  pay  it  as  you  please,  in  the 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        163 

large  majority  of  the  best  cases  will  still  be  underpaid. 
For  surely,  at  this  time  of  day  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, there  is  nothing  that  an  honest  man  should  fear 
more  timorously  than  getting  and  spending  more  than 
he  deserves. 


ADVICE  TO   A  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

EDWARD  COPLESTON 

i 776-1 849 

This  satirical  essay  was  first  published  in  the  form  of  a  pam- 
phlet, at  Oxford,  in  1807.  The  fact  that  it  is  more  than  a  cen- 
tury old  does  not  prevent  it  from  reading  as  if  it  had  been 
written  about  the  sins  of  some  twentieth-century  reviewers. 
Students  especially,  when  they  write  their  first  reviews  for 
publication,  feel  that  they  must  say  something  striking  and 
pretentious,  even  at  the  cost  of  misrepresenting  an  author's 
painstaking,  his  capacity  for  constructive  thought,  or  his 
genius  for  expression. 

The  author  of  Advice  to  a  Young  Reviewer  was  a  writer,  a 
professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford  University,  and  a  bishop  in  the 
Anglican  church. 

YOU  are  now  about  to  enter  on  a  profession  which 
has  the  means  of  doing  much  good  to  society,  and 
scarcely  any  temptation  to  do  harm.  You  may  en- 
courage genius,  you  may  chastise  superficial  arrogance, 
expose  falsehood,  correct  error,  and  guide  the  taste 
and  opinions  of  the  age  in  no  small  degree  by  the 
books  you  praise  and  recommend.  All  this  too  may  be 
done  without  running  the  risk  of  making  any  enemies, 
or  subjecting  yourself  to  be  called  to  account  for  your 
criticism,  however  severe.  While  your  name  is  un- 
known, your  person  is  invulnerable:  at  the  same  time 
your  own  aim  is  sure,  for  you  may  take  it  at  your  leisure; 
and  your  blows  fall  heavier  than  those  of  any  writer 
whose  name  is  given,  or  who  is  simply  anonymous. 
There  is  a  mysterious  authority  in  the  plural  we,  which 
no  single  name,  whatever  may  be  its  reputation,  can 
acquire;  and  under  the  sanction  of  this  imposing  style 

164 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  165 

your  strictures,  your  praises,  and  your  dogmas  will  com- 
mand universal  attention,  and  be  received  as  the  fruit 
of  united  talents,  acting  on  one  common  principle  —  as 
the  judgments  of  a  tribunal  who  decide  only  on  mature 
deliberation,  and  who  protect  the  interests  of  literature 
with  unceasing  vigilance. 

Such  being  the  high  importance  of  that  office,  and 
such  its  opportunities,  I  cannot  bestow  a  few  hours  of 
leisure  better  than  in  furnishing  you  with  some  hints  for 
the  more  easy  and  effectual  discharge  of  it:  hints  which 
are,  I  confess,  loosely  thrown  together,  but  which  are 
the  result  of  long  experience,  and  of  frequent  reflec- 
tion and  comparison.  And  if  anything  should  strike  you 
at  first  sight  as  rather  equivocal  in  point  of  morality,  or 
deficient  in  liberality  and  feeling,  I  beg  you  will  suppress 
all  such  scruples,  and  consider  them  as  the  offspring  of 
a  contracted  education  and  narrow  way  of  thinking, 
which  a  little  intercourse  with  the  world  and  sober  rea- 
soning will  speedily  overcome. 

Now,  as  in  the  conduct  of  life  nothing  is  more  to 
be  desired  than  some  governing  principle  of  action,  to 
which  all  other  principles  and  motives  must  be  made 
subservient,  so  in  the  art  of  reviewing  I  would  lay  down 
as  a  fundamental  position,  which  you  must  never  lose 
sight  of,  and  which  must  be  the  mainspring  of  all  your 
criticisms  —  write  what  will  sell.  To  this  golden  rule 
every  minor  canon  must  be  subordinate,  and  must  be 
either  immediately  deducible  from  it,  or  at  least  be  made 
consistent  with  it.  Be  not  staggered  at  the  sound  of  a 
precept,  which  upon  examination  will  be  found  as  honest 
and  virtuous  as  it  is  discreet.  I  have  already  sketched 
out  the  great  services  which  it  is  in  your  power  to  render 
mankind;  but  all  your  efforts  would  be  unavailing  if 


1 66  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

men  did  not  read  what  you  write.  Your  utility  there- 
fore, it  is  plain,  depends  upon  your  popularity;  and 
popularity  cannot  be  attained  without  humouring  the 
taste  and  inclinations  of  men. 

Be  assured  that  by  a  similar  train  of  sound  and  judi- 
cious reasoning  the  consciences  of  thousands  in  public 
life  are  daily  quieted.  It  is  better  for  the  State  that  their 
party  should  govern  than  any  other;  the  good  which 
they  can  effect  by  the  exercise  of  power  is  infinitely 
greater  than  any  which  could  arise  from  a  rigid  adher- 
ence to  certain  subordinate  moral  precepts,  which  there- 
fore should  be  violated  without  scruple  whenever  they 
stand  in  the  way  of  their  leading  purpose.  He  who  sticks 
at  these  can  never  act  a  great  part  in  the  world,  and  is 
not  fit  to  act  it  if  he  could.  Such  maxims  may  be  very 
useful  in  ordinary  affairs,  and  for  the  guidance  of  ordi- 
nary men;  but  when  we  mount  into  the  sphere  of  public 
utility,  we  must  adopt  more  enlarged  principles,  and  not 
suffer  ourselves  to  be  cramped  and  fettered  by  petty 
notions  of  right  and  moral  duty. 

When  you  have  reconciled  yourself  to  this  liberal  way 
of  thinking,  you  will  find  many  inferior  advantages  re- 
sulting from  it,  which  at  first  did  not  enter  into  your 
consideration.  In  particular,  it  will  greatly  lighten  your 
labours  to  follow  the  public  taste,  instead  of  taking  upon 
you  to  direct  it.  The  task  of  pleasing  is  at  all  times  easier 
than  that  of  instructing:  at  least  it  does  not  stand  in 
need  of  painful  research  and  preparation,  and  may  be 
effected  in  general  by  a  little  vivacity  of  manner,  and  a 
dexterous  morigeration  (as  Lord  Bacon  calls  it)  to  the 
humours  and  frailties  of  men.  Your  responsibility,  too, 
is  thereby  much  lessened.  Justice  and  candour  can  only 
be  required  of  you  so  far  as  they  coincide  with  this  main 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  167 

principle;  and  a  little  experience  will  convince  you  that 
these  are  not  the  happiest  means  of  accomplishing  your 
purpose. 

It  has  been  idly  said,  that  a  Reviewer  acts  in  a  judicial 
capacity,  and  that  his  conduct  should  be  regulated  by 
the  same  rules  by  which  the  Judge  of  a  civil  court  is  gov- 
erned; that  he  should  rid  himself  of  every  bias;  be  pa- 
tient, cautious,  sedate,  and  rigidly  impartial;  that  he 
should  not  seek  to  show  off  himself,  and  should  check 
every  disposition  to  enter  into  the  case  as  a  partisan. 

Such  is  the  language  of  superficial  thinkers;  but  in 
reality  there  is  no  analogy  between  the  two  cases.  A 
Judge  is  promoted  to  that  office  by  the  authority  of  the 
State;  a  Reviewer  by  his  own.  The  former  is  independ- 
ent of  control,  and  may  therefore  freely  follow  the  dic- 
tates of  his  own  conscience;  the  latter  depends  for  his 
very  bread  upon  the  breath  of  public  opinion:  the  great 
law  of  self-preservation  therefore  points  out  to  him  a 
different  line  of  action.  Besides,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, if  he  ceases  to  please  he  is  no  longer  read,  and 
consequently  is  no  longer  useful.  In  a  court  of  justice, 
too,  the  part  of  amusing  the  bystanders  rests  with  the 
counsel:  in  the  case  of  criticism,  if  the  Reviewer  himself 
does  not  undertake  it,  who  will?  Instead  of  vainly  as- 
piring therefore  to  the  gravity  of  a  magistrate,  I  would 
advise  him,  when  he  sits  down  to  write,  to  place  himself 
in  the  imaginary  situation  of  a  cross-examining  pleader. 
He  may  comment,  in  a  vein  of  agreeable  irony,  upon  the 
profession,  the  manner  of  lite,  the  look,  dress,  or  even 
the  name  of  the  witness  he  is  examining:  when  he  has 
raised  a  contemptuous  opinion  of  him  in  the  minds  ot 
the  court,  he  may  proceed  to  draw  answers  from  him 
capable  of  a  ludicrous  turn,  and  he  may  carve  and  garble 


1 68  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

these  to  his  own  liking.  This  mode  of  proceeding  you 
will  find  most  practicable  in  poetry,  where  the  boldness 
of  the  image,  or  the  delicacy  of  thought,  for  which  the 
reader's  mind  was  prepared  in  the  original,  will  easily  be 
made  to  appear  extravagant  or  affected,  if  judiciously 
singled  out  and  detached  from  the  group  to  which  it  be- 
longs. Again,  since  much  depends  upon  the  rhythm  and 
the  terseness  of  expression,  both  of  which  are  sometimes 
destroyed  by  dropping  a  single  word,  or  transposing  a 
phrase,  I  have  known  much  advantage  arise  from  not 
quoting  in  the  form  of  a  literal  extract,  but  giving  a  brief 
summary  in  prose  of  the  contents  of  a  poetical  passage; 
and  interlarding  your  own  language  with  occasional 
phrases  of  the  poem,  marked  with  inverted  commas. 
These,  and  a  thousand  other  little  expedients,  by  which 
the  arts  of  quizzing  and  banter  flourish,  practice  will 
soon  teach  you.  If  it  should  be  necessary  to  transcribe 
a  dull  passage,  not  very  fertile  in  topics  of  humour  and 
raillery,  you  may  introduce  it  as  a  "favourable  speci- 
men of  the  author's  manner. " 

Few  people  are  aware  of  the  powerful  effects  of  what 
is  philosophically  termed  association.  Without  any 
positive  violation  of  truth,  the  whole  dignity  of  a  pas- 
sage may  be  undermined  by  contriving  to  raise  some 
vulgar  and  ridiculous  notions  in  the  mind  of  the  reader; 
and  language  teems  with  examples  of  words  by  which 
the  same  idea  is  expressed,  with  the  difference  only  that 
one  excites  a  feeling  of  respect,  the  other  of  contempt. 
Thus,  you  may  call  a  fit  of  melancholy  "  the  sulks,"  re- 
sentment "a  pet,"  a  steed  "a  nag,"  a  feast  "a  junket- 
ing," sorrow  and  affliction  "whining  and  blubbering." 
By  transferring  the  terms  peculiar  to  one  state  of  society 
to  analogous  situations  and  characters  in  another,  the 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  169 

same  object  is  attained,  a  drill-sergeant  or  a  cat-and- 
nine-tails  in  the  Trojan  War,  a  Lesbos  smack  put  into 
the  Piraeus,  the  penny-post  of  Jerusalem,  and  other 
combinations  of  the  like  nature,  which,  when  you  have 
a  little  indulged  that  vein  of  thought,  will  readily  sug- 
gest themselves,  never  fail  to  raise  a  smile,  if  not  imme- 
diately at  the  expense  of  the  author,  yet  entirely  de- 
structive of  that  frame  of  mind  which  his  poem  requires 
in  order  to  be  relished. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  this  branch  of  literature, 
because  you  are  chiefly  to  look  here  for  materials  of  fun 
and  irony.  Voyages  and  travels  indeed  are  no  barren 
ground,  and  you  must  seldom  let  a  number  of  your  Re- 
view go  abroad  without  an  article  of  this  description. 
The  charm  of  this  species  of  writing,  so  universally  felt, 
arises  chiefly  from  its  uniting  narrative  with  informa- 
tion. The  interest  we  take  in  the  story  can  only  be  kept 
alive  by  minute  incident  and  occasional  detail,  which 
puts  us  in  possession  of  the  traveller's  feelings,  his  hopes, 
his  fears,  his  disappointments,  and  his  pleasures.  At  the 
same  time  the  thirst  for  knowledge  and  love  of  novelty 
is  gratified  by  continual  information  respecting  the  peo- 
ple and  countries  he  visits.  If  you  wish,  therefore,  to  run 
down  the  book,  you  have  only  to  play  off  these  two  parts 
against  each  other:  when  the  writer's  object  is  to  satisfy 
the  first  inclination,  you  are  to  thank  him  for  communi- 
cating to  the  world  such  valuable  facts  —  as  whether  he 
lost  his  way  in  the  night  —  or  sprained  his  ankle  —  or 
had  no  appetite  to  his  dinner.  If  he  is  busied  about  de- 
scribing the  mineralogy,  natural  history,  agriculture, 
trade,  &c,  of  a  country,  you  may  mention  a  hundred 
books  from  whence  the  same  information  may  be 
obtained,  and  deprecate  the  practice  of  emptying  old 


170  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

musty  folios  into  new  quartos,  to  gratify  that  sickly 
taste  for  a  smattering  about  everything  which  distin- 
guishes the  present  age. 

In  works  of  science  and  recondite  learning,  the  task 
you  have  undertaken  will  not  be  so  difficult  as  you  may 
imagine.  Tables  of  contents  and  indexes  are  blessed 
helps  in  the  hands  of  a  Reviewer;  but,  more  than  all,  the 
preface  is  the  field  from  which  his  richest  harvest  is  to  be 
gathered.  In  the  preface  the  author  usually  gives  a 
summary  of  what  has  been  written  on  the  same  subject 
before;  he  acknowledges  the  assistance  he  has  received 
from  different  sources,  and  the  reasons  of  his  dissent 
from  former  writers;  he  confesses  that  certain  parts  have 
been  less  attentively  considered  than  others,  and  that 
information  has  come  to  his  hands  too  late  to  be  made 
use  of;  he  points  out  many  things  in  the  composition  of 
his  work  which  he  thinks  may  provoke  animadversion, 
and  endeavours  to  defend  or  to  palliate  his  own  practice. 
Here  then  is  a  fund  of  wealth  for  the  Reviewer,  lying 
upon  the  very  surface;  if  he  knows  anything  of  his  bus- 
iness, he  will  turn  all  these  materials  against  the  author, 
carefully  suppressing  the  source  of  his  information,  and 
as  if  drawing  from  the  stores  of  his  own  mind,  long  ago 
laid  up  for  this  very  purpose.  If  the  author's  references 
are  correct,  a  great  point  is  gained;  for,  by  consulting  a 
few  passages  of  the  original  works,  it  will  be  easy  to  dis- 
cuss the  subject  with  the  air  of  having  a  previous  knowl- 
edge of  the  whole.  Your  chief  vantage-ground  is  that 
you  may  fasten  upon  any  position  in  the  book  you  are 
reviewing,  and  treat  it  as  principal  and  essential,  when 
perhaps  it  is  of  little  weight  in  the  main  argument;  but, 
by  allotting  a  large  share  of  your  criticism  to  it,  the 
reader  will  naturally  be  led  to  give  it  a  proportionate 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  171 

importance,  and  to  consider  the  merit  of  the  treatise  at 
issue  upon  that  single  question.  If  anybody  complains 
that  the  greater  and  more  valuable  parts  remain  un- 
noticed, your  answer  it  is  that  it  is  possible  to  pay  at- 
tention to  all,  and  that  your  duty  is  rather  to  prevent 
the  propagation  of  error  than  to  lavish  praises  upon 
that  which,  if  really  excellent,  will  work  its  way  in  the 
world  without  your  help.  Indeed,  if  the  plan  of  your 
Review  admits  of  selection,  you  had  better  not  meddle 
with  works  of  deep  research  and  original  speculation, 
such  as  have  already  attracted  much  notice,  and  cannot 
be  treated  superficially  without  fear  of  being  found  out. 
The  time  required  for  making  yourself  thoroughly  mas- 
ter of  the  subject  is  so  great,  that  you  may  depend  upon 
it  they  will  never  pay  for  the  reviewing.  They  are  gen- 
erally the  fruit  of  long  study,  and  of  talents  concen- 
trated in  the  steady  pursuit  of  one  object;  it  is  not 
likely  therefore  that  you  can  throw  much  new  light  on  a 
question  of  this  nature,  or  even  plausibly  combat  the 
author's  positions  in  the  course  of  a  few  hours,  which  is 
all  you  can  well  afford  to  devote  to  them.  And,  without 
accomplishing  one  or  other  of  these  points,  your  review 
will  gain  no  celebrity,  and  of  course  no  good  will  be  done. 
Enough  has  been  said  to  give  you  some  insight  into 
the  facilities  with  which  your  new  employment  abounds: 
I  will  only  mention  one  more,  because  of  its  extensive 
and  almost  universal  application  to  all  branches  of  liter- 
ature—  the  topic,  I  mean,  which  by  the  old  Rhetoricians 
was  called  ££  kvavrluv.  That  is,  when  a  work  excels  in 
one  quality,  you  may  blame  it  for  not  having  the  oppo- 
site. For  instance,  if  the  biographical  sketch  of  a  literary 
character  is  minute  and  full  of  anecdote,  you  may  en- 
large on  the  advantages  of  philosophical  reflection,  and 


172  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

the  superior  mind  required  to  give  a  judicious  analysis 
of  the  opinions  and  works  of  deceased  authors;  on  the 
contrary,  if  the  latter  method  is  pursued  by  the  biog- 
rapher, you  can  with  equal  ease  extol  the  lively  colour- 
ing and  truth  and  interest  of  exact  delineation  and  de- 
tail. This  topic,  you  will  perceive,  enters  into  style  as 
well  as  matter,  where  many  virtues  might  be  named 
which  are  incompatible;  and,  whichever  the  author  has 
preferred,  it  will  be  the  signal  for  ycu  to  launch  forth  on 
the  praises  of  its  opposite,  and  continually  to  hold  up 
that  to  your  reader  as  the  model  of  excellence  in  this 
species  of  writing. 

You  will,  perhaps,  wonder  why  all  my  instructions 
are  pointed  towards  the  censure  and  not  the  praise  of 
books;  but  many  reasons  might  be  given  why  it  should 
be  so.  The  chief  are,  that  this  part  is  both  easier,  and 
will  sell  better.  Let  us  hear  the  words  of  Mr.  Burke  on 
a  subject  not  very  dissimilar:  "In  such  cases,"  says  he, 
"the  writer  has  a  certain  fire  and  alacrity  inspired  into 
him  by  a  consciousness  that,  let  it  fare  how  it  will  with 
the  subject,  his  ingenuity  will  be  sure  of  applause;  and 
this  alacrity  becomes  much  greater,  if  he  acts  upon  the 
offensive,  by  the  impetuosity  that  always  accompanies 
an  attack,  and  the  unfortunate  propensity  which  man- 
kind have  to  the  finding  and  exaggerating  faults. "  (Pre- 
face V indie.  Nat.  Soc,  p.  6.)  You  will  perceive  that  I 
have  on  no  occasion  sanctioned  the  baser  motives  of 
private  pique,  envy,  revenge,  and  love  of  detraction;  at 
least,  I  have  not  recommended  harsh  treatment  upon 
any  of  these  grounds;  I  have  argued  simply  on  the  ab- 
stract moral  principle  which  a  Reviewer  should  ever 
have  present  to  his  mind:  but  if  any  of  these  motives 
insinuate  themselves  as  secondary  springs  of  action,  I 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  173 

would  not  condemn  them;  they  may  come  in  aid  of  the 
grand  leading  principle,  and  powerfully  second  its  oper- 
ation. 

But  it  is  time  to  close  these  tedious  precepts,  and  to 
furnish  you  with  what  speaks  plainer  than  any  precept, 
a  specimen  of  the  art  itself,  in  which  several  of  them  are 
embodied.  It  is  hastily  done,  but  it  exemplifies  well 
enough  what  I  have  said  of  the  poetical  department, 
and  exhibits  most  of  those  qualities  which  disappointed 
authors  are  fond  of  railing  at,  under  the  names  of  flip- 
pancy, arrogance,  conceit,  misrepresentation,  and  malev- 
olence; reproaches  which  you  will  only  regard  as  so 
many  acknowledgments  of  success  in  your  undertaking, 
and  infallible  tests  of  an  established  fame  and  rapidly 
increasing  circulation. 

U  Allegro:  a  Poem.  By  John  Milton. 
No  Printer's  name. 
It  has  become  a  practice  of  late  with  a  certain  descrip- 
tion of  people,  who  have  no  visible  means  of  subsistence, 
to  string  together  a  few  trite  images  of  rural  scenery, 
interspersed  with  vulgarisms  in  dialect  and  traits  of  vul- 
gar manners;  to  dress  up  these  materials  in  a  sing-song 
jingle,  and  to  ofter  them  for  sale  as  a  poem.  According 
to  the  most  approved  recipes,  something  about  the  hea- 
then gods  and  goddesses,  and  the  schoolboy  topics  of 
Styx,  and  Cerberus,  and  Elysium,  is  occasionally  thrown 
in,  and  the  composition  is  complete.  The  stock-in-trade 
of  these  adventurers  is  in  general  scanty  enough,  and 
their  art  therefore  consists  in  disposing  it  to  the  best 
advantage.  But  if  such  be  the  aim  of  the  writer,  it  is  the 
critic's  business  to  detect  and  defeat  the  imposture;  to 
warn  the  public   against  the  purchase  of  shop-worn 


174  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

goods  and  tinsel  wares;  to  protect  the  fair  trader,  by 
exposing  the  tricks  of  needy  quacks  and  mounte- 
banks; and  to  chastise  that  forward  and  noisy  impor- 
tunity with  which  they  present  themselves  to  the  public 
notice. 

How  far  Mr.  Milton  is  amenable  to  this  discipline  will 
best  appear  from  a  brief  analysis  of  the  poem  before  us. 
In  the  very  opening  he  assumes  a  tone  of  authority, 
which  might  better  suit  some  veteran  bard  than  a  raw 
candidate  for  the  Delphic  bays:  for,  before  he  proceeds 
to  the  regular  process  of  invocation,  he  clears  the  way 
by  driving  from  his  presence,  with  sundry  hard  names 
and  bitter  reproaches  on  her  father,  mother,  and  all  the 
family,  a  venerable  personage,  whose  age  at  least,  and 
staid  matron-like  appearance,  might  have  entitled  her 
to  more  civil  language. 

Hence,  loathed  Melancholy; 
Of  Cerberus  and  blackest  midnight  born, 
In  Stygian  cave  forlorn,  &c. 

There  is  no  giving  rules,  however,  in  these  matters, 
without  a  knowledge  of  the  case.  Perhaps  the  old  lady 
had  been  frequently  warned  off  before,  and  provoked 
this  violence  by  continuing  still  to  lurk  about  the  poet's 
dwelling.  And,  to  say  the  truth,  the  reader  will  have  but 
too  good  reason  to  remark,  before  he  gets  through  the 
poem,  that  it  is  one  thing  to  tell  the  spirit  of  dulness  to 
depart,  and  another  to  get  rid  of  her  in  reality.  Like 
Glendower's  spirits,  any  one  may  order  them  away, 
"but  will  they  go  when  you  do  order  them?" 

But  let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  Parnassian 
decree  is  obeyed,  and  according  to  the  letter  of  the  order, 
which  is  as  precise  and  wordy  as  if  Justice  Shallow  him- 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  175 

self  had  drawn  it,  that  the  obnoxious  female  is  sent  back 
to  the  place  of  her  birth, 

'Mongst  horrid  shapes,  shrieks,  sights,  &c, 

at  which  we  beg  our  fair  readers  not  to  be  alarmed,  for 
we  can  assure  them  they  are  only  words  of  course  in  all 
poetical  instruments  of  this  nature,  and  mean  no  more 
than  the  "force  and  arms,"  and  "instigation  of  the 
devil"  in  a  common  indictment.  This  nuisance  then 
being  abated,  we  are  left  at  liberty  to  contemplate  a 
character  of  a  different  complexion,  "  buxom,  blithe,  and 
debonair,"  one  who,  although  evidently  a  great  favour- 
ite of  the  poet's,  and  therefore  to  be  received  with  all 
due  courtesy,  is  notwithstanding  introduced  under  the 
suspicious  description  of  an  alias: 

In  heaven  ycleped  Euphrosyne, 
And  by  men,  heart-easing  Mirth. 

Judging  indeed  from  the  light  and  easy  deportment  of 
this  gay  nymph,  one  might  guess  there  were  good  rea- 
sons for  a  change  of  name  as  she  changed  her  residence. 
But  of  all  vices  there  is  none  we  abhor  more  than  that 
of  slanderous  insinuation;  we  shall,  therefore,  confine 
our  moral  strictures  to  the  nymph's  mother,  in  whose 
defence  the  poet  has  little  to  say  himself.  Here  too,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  name,  there  is  some  doubt:  for  the  un- 
certainty of  descent  on  the  father's  side  having  become 
trite  to  a  proverb,  the  author,  scorning  that  beaten 
track,  has  left  us  to  choose  between  two  mothers  for  his 
favourite,  and  without  much  to  guide  our  choice;  for, 
whichever  we  fix  upon,  it  is  plain  she  was  no  better  than 
she  should  be.  As  he  seems,  however,  himself  inclined 
to  the  latter  of  the  two,  we  will  even  suppose  it  so  to  be: 


176  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

Or  whether  (as  some  sager  sing) 

The  frolic  wind  that  breathes  the  spring, 

Zephyr  with  Aurora  playing, 

As  he  met  her  once  a-Maying, 

There  on  beds  of  violets  blue, 

And  fresh-blown  roses  washed  in  dew,  &c. 

Some  dull  people  might  imagine  that  the  wind  was 
more  like  the  breath  of  spring,  than  spring  the  breath  of 
the  wind;  but  we  are  more  disposed  to  question  the  au- 
thor's ethics  than  his  physics,  and  accordingly  cannot 
dismiss  these  May  gambols  without  some  observations. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr.  M.  seems  to  have  higher  no- 
tions of  the  antiquity  of  the  Maypole  than  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  attach  to  it.  Or  perhaps  he  thought  to 
shelter  the  equivocal  nature  of  this  affair  under  that 
sanction.  To  us,  however,  who  can  hardly  subscribe  to 
the  doctrine  that  "vice  loses  half  its  evil  by  losing  all  its 
grossness,"  neither  the  remoteness  of  time  nor  the  gaiety 
of  the  season  furnishes  a  sufficient  palliation.  "Violets 
blue"  and  "fresh-blown  roses"  are,  to  be  sure,  more 
agreeable  objects  of  the  imagination  than  a  ginshop  in 
Wapping  or  a  booth  in  Bartholomew  Fair;  but  in  point 
of  morality  these  are  distinctions  without  a  difference; 
or,  it  may  be,  the  cultivation  of  mind,  which  teaches  us 
to  reject  and  nauseate  these  latter  objects,  aggravates 
the  case  if  our  improvement  in  taste  be  not  accompanied 
by  a  proportionate  improvement  of  morals. 

If  the  reader  can  reconcile  himself  to  this  latitude  of 
principle,  the  anachronism  will  not  long  stand  in  his 
way.  Much,  indeed,  may  be  said  in  favour  of  this  union 
of  ancient  mythology  with  modern  notions  and  man- 
ners. It  is  a  sort  of  chronological  metaphor  —  an  arti- 
ficial analogy,  by  which  ideas,  widely  remote  and  heter- 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  177 

ogeneous,  are  brought  into  contact,  and  the  mind  is  de- 
lighted by  this  unexpected  assemblage,  as  it  is  by  the 
combinations  of  figurative  language. 

Thus  in  that  elegant  interlude,  which  the  pen  of  Ben 
Jonson  has  transmitted  to  us,  of  the  loves  of  Hero  and 
Leander: 

Gentles,  that  no  longer  your  expectations  may  wander, 
Behold  our  chief  actor,  amorous  Leander, 
With  a  great  deal  of  cloth,  lapped  about  him  like  a  scarf, 
For  he  yet  serves  his  father,  a  dyer  in  Puddle  Wharf; 
Which  place  we'll  make  bold  with,  to  call  it  our  Abydus, 
As  the  Bank  side  is  our  Sestos,  and  let  it  not  be  denied  us. 

And  far  be  it  from  us  to  deny  the  use  of  so  reasonable  a 
liberty;  especially  if  the  request  be  backed  (as  it  is  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  M.)  by  the  craving  and  imperious  necessities 
of  rhyme.  What  man  who  has  ever  bestrode  Pegasus 
but  for  an  hour,  will  be  insensible  to  such  a  claim? 

Haud  ignara  mali  miseris  succurrere  disco. 

We  are  next  favoured  with  an  enumeration  of  the  attend- 
ants of  this  "debonair"  nymph,  in  all  the  minuteness 
of  a  German  dramatis  personae,  or  a  rope-dancer's  hand- 
bill: 

Haste  thee,  nymph,  and  bring  with  thee 

Jest,  and  youthful  Jollity; 

Quips,  and  cranks,  and  wanton  wiles, 

Nods,  and  becks,  and  wreathed  smiles, 

Such  as  hang  on  Hebe's  cheek, 

And  love  to  live  in  dimple  sleek; 

Sport  that  wrinkled  Care  derides, 

And  Laughter,  holding  both  his  sides. 

The  author,  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  being  admitted  of 
the  crew,  skips  and  capers  about  upon  "  the  light  fantas- 
tic toe,"  so  that  there  is  no  following  him.  He  scampers 


178  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

through  all  the  categories,  in  search  of  his  imaginary 
beings,  from  substance  to  quality,  and  back  again;  from 
thence  to  action,  passion,  habit,  &c,  with  incredible 
celerity.  Who,  for  instance,  would  have  expected 
cranks,  nods,  becks,  and  wreathed  smiles  as  part  of  a 
group,  in  which  Jest,  Jollity,  Sport  and  Laughter  figure 
away  as  full-formed  entire  personages?  The  family  like- 
ness is  certainly  very  strong  in  the  two  last,  and  if  we 
had  not  been  told  we  should  perhaps  have  thought  the 
act  of  deriding  as  appropriate  to  laughter  as  to  sport. 
But  how  are  we  to  understand  the  stage  directions? 

Come,  and  trip  it  as  you  go. 

Are  the  words  used  synonymously?  Or  is  it  meant  that 
this  airy  gentry  shall  come  in  at  a  minuet  step,  and  go 
off  in  a  jig?  The  phenomenon  of  a  tripping  crank  is  in- 
deed novel,  and  would  doubtless  attract  numerous 
spectators.  But  it  is  difficult  to  guess  to  whom  among 
this  jolly  company  the  poet  addresses  himself,  for  im- 
mediately after  the  plural  appellative  [you],  he  proceeds: 

And  in  thy  right  hand  lead  with  thee 
The  mountain  nymph,  sweet  Liberty. 

No  sooner  is  this  fair  damsel  introduced,  but  Mr.  M., 
with  most  unbecoming  levity,  falls  in  love  with  her,  and 
makes  a  request  of  her  companion,  which  is  rather 
greedy,  that  he  may  live  with  both  of  them: 

To  live  with  her,  and  live  with  thee. 

Even  the  gay  libertine  who  sung,  "How  happy  could  I 
be  with  either,"  did  not  go  so  far  as  this.  But  we  have 
already  had  occasion  to  remark  on  the  laxity  of  Mr.  M.'s 
amatory  notions. 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  179 

The  poet,  intoxicated  with  the  charms  of  his  mistress, 
now  rapidly  runs  over  the  pleasures  which  he  proposes 
to  himself  in  the  enjoyment  of  her  society.  But  though 
he  has  the  advantage  of  being  his  own  caterer,  either 
his  palate  is  of  a  peculiar  structure,  or  he  has  not  made 
the  most  judicious  selection.  To  begin  the  day  well,  he 
will  have  the  skylark 

to  come  in  spite  of  sorrow, 
And  at  his  window  bid  good  morrow. 

The  skylark,  if  we  know  anything  of  the  nature  of  that 
bird,  must  come  in  spite  of  something  else  as  well  as  of 
sorrow,  to  the  performance  of  this  office.  In  his  next 
image  the  natural  history  is  better  preserved,  and  as  the 
thoughts  are  appropriate  to  the  time  of  the  day,  we  will 
venture  to  transcribe  the  passage,  as  a  favourable  spec- 
imen of  the  author's  manner: 

While  the  cock  with  lively  din 
Scatters  the  rear  of  darkness  thin, 
And  to  the  stack,  or  the  barn-door, 
Stoutly  struts  his  dames  before; 
Oft  listening  how  the  hounds  and  horn 
Cheerly  rouse  the  slumbering  morn, 
From  the  side  of  some  hoar  hill, 
Through  the  high  wood  echoing  shrill. 

Is  it  not  lamentable  that,  after  all,  whether  it  is  the  cock 
or  the  poet  that  listens,  should  be  left  entirely  to  the 
reader's  conjecture?  Perhaps  also  his  embarrassment 
may  be  increased  by  a  slight  resemblance  of  character 
in  these  two  illustrious  personages,  at  least  as  far  as  re- 
lates to  the  extent  and  numbers  of  their  seraglio. 

After  a.  flaming  description  of  sunrise,  on  which  occa- 
sion the  clouds  attend  in  their  very  best  liveries,  the  bill 


180  YOUNG  REVIEWER 

of  fare  for  the  day  proceeds  in  the  usual  manner.  Whis- 
tling ploughmen,  singing  milkmaids,  and  sentimental 
shepherds  are  always  to  be  had  at  a  moment's  notice, 
and,  if  well  grouped,  serve  to  fill  up  the  landscape  agree- 
ably enough.  On  this  part  of  the  poem  we  have  only  to 
remark,  that  if  Mr.  John  Milton  proposes  to  make  him- 
self merry  with 

Russet  lawns,  and  fallows  grey, 
Where  the  nibbling  flocks  do  stray; 
Mountains  on  whose  barren  breast 
The  labouring  clouds  do  often  rest, 
Meadows  trim  with  daisies  pied, 
Shallow  brooks,  and  rivers  wide, 
Towers  and  battlements,  &c.  &c.  &c, 

he  will  either  find  himself  egregiously  disappointed,  or 
he  must  possess  a  disposition  to  merriment  which  even 
Democritus  himself  might  envy.  To  such  a  pitch  indeed 
does  this  solemn  indication  of  joy  sometimes  rise,  that 
we  are  inclined  to  give  him  credit  for  a  literal  adherence 
to  the  Apostolic  precept,  "Is  any  merry,  let  him  sing 
psalms." 

At  length,  however,  he  hies  away  at  the  sound  of  bell- 
ringing,  and  seems  for  some  time  to  enioy  the  tippling 
and  fiddling  and  dancing  of  a  village  wake;  but  his 
fancy  is  soon  haunted  again  by  spectres  and  goblins,  a 
set  of  beings  not  in  general  esteemed  the  companions  or 
inspirers  of  mirth. 

With  stories  told  of  many  a  feat, 
How  fairy  Mab  the  junkets  eat; 
She  was  pinched,  and  pulled,  she  said; 
And  he,  by  friar's  lanthern  led, 
Tells  how  the  drudging  goblin  sweat 
To  earn  his  cream-bowl  duly  set; 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  181 

When  in  one  night,  ere  glimpse  of  morn, 
His  shadowy  flail  hath  threshed  the  corn, 
That  ten  day-labourers  could  not  end; 
Then  lies  him  down  the  lubbar  fiend, 
And,  stretched  out  all  the  chimney's  length, 
Basks  at  the  fire  his  hairy  strength; 
And  crop-full  out  of  door  he  flings, 
Ere  the  first  cock  his  matin  rings. 

Mr.  M.  seems  indeed  to  have  a  turn  for  this  species  of 
nursery  tales  and  prattling  lullabies;  and  if  he  will 
studiously  cultivate  his  talent  he  need  not  despair  of 
figuring  in  a  conspicuous  corner  of  Mr.  Newbury's  shop- 
window;  unless  indeed  Mrs.  Trimmer  should  think  fit  to 
proscribe  those  empty  levities  and  idle  superstitions  by 
which  the  world  has  been  too  long  abused. 

From  these  rustic  fictions  we  are  transported  to  an- 
other species  of  hum: 

Towered  cities  please  us  then, 

And  the  busy  hum  of  men, 

Where  throngs  of  knights  and  barons  bold 

In  weeds  of  peace  high  triumphs  hold, 

With  store  of  ladies,  whose  bright  eyes 

Rain  influence,  and  judge  the  prize 

Of  wit  or  arms,  while  both  contend 

To  win  her  grace,  whom  all  commend. 

To  talk  of  the  bright  eyes  of  ladies  judging  the  prize  of 
wit  is  indeed  with  the  poets  a  legitimate  species  of  hum- 
ming: but  would  not,  we  may  ask,  the  rain  from  these 
ladies'  bright  eyes  rather  tend  to  dim  their  lustre?  Or  is 
there  any  quality  in  a  shower  of  influence,  which,  instead 
of  deadening,  serves  only  to  brighten  and  exhilarate? 
Whatever  the  case  may  be,  we  would  advise  Mr.  M.  by 
all  means  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  these  knights  and 
barons  bold;  for  if  he  has  nothing  but  his  wit  to  trust  to, 


182 


YOUNG  REVIEWER 


we  will  venture  to  predict  that,  without  a  large  share  of 
most  undue  influence,  he  must  be  content  to  see  the 
prize  adjudged  to  his  competitors. 

Of  the  latter  part  of  the  poem  little  need  be  said.  The 
author  does  seem  somewhat  more  at  home  when  he  gets 
among  the  actors  and  musicians,  though  his  head  is  still 
running  upon  Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  and  Pluto,  and 
other  sombre  gentry,  who  are  ever  thrusting  themselves 
in  where  we  least  expect  them,  and  who  chill  every  rising 
emotion  of  mirth  and  gaiety. 

He  appears,  however,  to  be  so  ravished  with  this 
sketch  of  festive  pleasures,  or  perhaps  with  himself  for 
having  sketched  them  so  well,  that  he  closes  with  a 
couplet,  which  would  not  have  disgraced  a  Sternhold: 

These  delights  if  thou  canst  give, 
Mirth,  with  thee  I  mean  to  live. 

Of  Mr.  M.'s  good  intentions  there  can  be  no  doubt;  but 
we  beg  leave  to  remind  him  that  in  every  compact  of 
this  nature  there  are  two  opinions  to  be  consulted.  He 
presumes,  perhaps,  upon  the  poetical  powers  he  has  dis- 
played, and  considers  them  as  irresistible;  for  every  one 
must  observe  in  how  different  a  strain  he  avows  his  at- 
tachment now  and  at  the  opening  of  the  poem.   Then  it 

was, 

If  I  give  thee  honour  due, 
Mirth,  admit  me  of  thy  crew. 

But  having,  it  should  seem,  established  his  pretensions, 
he  now  thinks  it  sufficient  to  give  notice  that  he  means 
to  live  with  her,  because  he  likes  her. 

Upon  the  whole,  Mr.  Milton  seems  to  be  possessed  of 
some  fancy  and  talent  for  rhyming;  two  most  dangerous 
endowments,  which  often  unfit  men  for  acting  a  useful 


EDWARD  COPLESTON  183 

part  in  life,  without  qualifying  them  for  that  which  is 
great  and  brilliant.  If  it  be  true,  as  we  have  heard, 
that  he  has  declined  advantageous  prospects  in  business 
for  the  sake  of  indulging  his  poetical  humour,  we  hope 
it  is  not  yet  too  late  to  prevail  upon  him  to  retract  his 
resolution.  With  the  help  of  Cocker  and  common  indus- 
try he  may  become  a  respectable  scrivener;  but  it  is  not 
all  the  Zephyrs,  and  Auroras,  and  Corydons,  and  Thyr- 
sises,  aye,  nor  his  junketing  Queen  Mab  and  drudging 
goblins,  that  will  ever  make  him  a  poet. 


III.  FICTIONAL  NARRATIVE 


WHAT  EVERYONE  KNOWS  ABOUT 

EXPRESSION  AND  SOMETHING 

WHICH  ALL  THE  WORLD 

DOES  NOT  KNOW 

DENIS  DIDEROT 

1713-1784 

The  two  very  short  articles  which  follow  are  taken  from  Di- 
derot's Thoughts  on  Art  and  Style,  a  volume  of  translations  from 
the  Encyclopedia  and  the  Salons  made  by  Beatrix  L.  Tolle- 
mache  (Hon.  Mrs.  Lionel  Tollemache)  and  published  by 
Rivingtons,  London  (Second  edition,  1904).  Of  course  Di- 
derot speaks  here  more  especially  of  painting  and  sculpture,  but 
his  observations  bear  with  such  directness  upon  expression  in 
writing,  that  these  two  passages  deserve  a  place  in  a  volume 
on  literary  art. 

Sunt  lachrymae  rerum,  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt. 

[Virg.,  AZneid,  Lib.  I,  v.  466.] 

EXPRESSION  is  generally  the  sign  of  some  particu- 
lar feeling.  An  actor  who  knows  nothing  about 
painting  is  a  poor  actor;  a  painter  who  is  not  a  physiog- 
nomist is  a  poor  painter.  In  every  part  of  the  world, 
each  country,  each  district  of  that  country,  each  town  of 
that  district,  each  family  of  that  town,  and  each  individ- 
ual of  that  family  has  each  moment  his  peculiar  phys- 
iognomy and  expression.  A  man  may  be  either  angry, 
or  attentive,  or  curious;  he  loves,  hates,  scorns,  disdains, 
admires;  and  each  one  of  these  states  of  feeling  impresses 
itself  in  clear  and  unmistakable  characters  on  his  coun- 
tenance. 

1  Used  by  permission  of  Beatrix  L.  Tollemache. 
187 


1 88  EXPRESSION 

I  say  on  his  countenance,  but  it  is  shown  in  each  fea- 
ture, his  mouth,  his  cheeks,  his  eyes;  they  light  up,  they 
grow  dull,  they  languish,  the  look  wanders  or  becomes 
staring.  A  painter's  imagination  is  a  storehouse  of  a 
vast  number  of  impressions  of  this  kind.  Each  of  us  has 
his  own  little  collection,  and  thus  forms  his  own  judg- 
ment of  beauty  or  ugliness.  Pay  attention,  and  ask 
yourself  what  it  is  which  attracts  or  repels  you  when  you 
look  at  a  man  or  a  woman,  and  you  will  find  that  it  is 
always  the  signs  of  some  good  quality,  or  the  marks  of 
evil  qualities  in  the  expression  of  the  face. 

Imagine  the  statue  of  Antinous  before  you.  The  fea- 
tures are  regular  and  beautiful.  The  full  cheeks  show 
health;  and  we  admire  health,  it  is  the  corner-stone  of 
happiness.  The  countenance  is  tranquil,  and  the  feeling 
of  repose  pleases  us.  He  looks  wise  and  thoughtful;  and 
we  love  wisdom  and  thoughtfulness.  I  will  leave  the  rest 
of  the  figure  and  confine  my  remarks  to  the  head. 

Let  the  features  remain  as  they  are,  but  just  lift  up 
one  corner  of  the  mouth,  and  the  expression  will  be 
ironical  and  less  pleasing.  Let  the  mouth  return  to  its 
original  state,  and  raise  the  eyebrows;  it  will  give  the 
effect  of  pride  and  be  less  pleasing.  Now  raise  both  cor- 
ners of  the  mouth  and  let  the  eyes  be  wide  open,  and  you 
will  have  a  cynical  face,  and  if  you  are  a  father  you  will 
not  care  to  trust  your  daughter  to  that  man.  Let  the 
corners  of  the  mouth  fall  down,  and  drop  the  eyelids  till 
they  half  conceal  the  pupils,  and  you  will  have  made  the 
face  that  of  a  deceitful,  designing  man,  whom  you  will 
certainly  avoid. 

In  society  each  class  of  citizens  has  its  own  character 
and  expression,  the  artisan,  the  nobleman,  the  com- 


DENIS  DIDEROT  189 

moner,  the  man  of  letters,  the  ecclesiastic,  the  magis- 
trate, the  soldier.1 

Amongst  artisans  also  there  are  the  bodily  habits  and 
the  physiognomies  produced  by  the  shop  and  trade. 
Each  society  has  its  own  form  of  government,  and  each 
form  has  its  own  salient  quality,  real  or  imagined,  which 
is  its  spirit,  its  motive,  and  its  support. 

Equality  is  the  dominating  note  of  a  republic;  each 
subject  considers  himself  a  small  king;  therefore  the  ex- 
pression of  the  republican  is  haughty,  proud,  severe. 

In  a  monarchy  there  are  two  classes,  those  who  com- 
mand and  those  who  obey;  the  character  and  expression 
produced  are  those  of  affability,  grace,  gentleness,  hon- 
our, and  gallantry. 

Under  a  despotism  we  shall  see  on  each  countenance 
the  influence  of  slavery,  and  we  shall  have  gentle,  timid 
faces,  with  a  modest  expression,  deprecating  and  en- 
treating. The  slave  walks  with  head  bent;  he  seems  al- 
ways expecting  the  sword  to  fall  on  his  neck. 

Let  us  first  of  all  draw  a  noble  type  of  head.  It  is  eas- 
ier to  paint  the  passions  on  a  fine  countenance.  And  the 
stronger  the  passions  depicted  the  more  terrible  are 
they.  The  Eumenides  of  the  old  Greeks  were  beautiful, 
but  were  none  the  less  awful.  If  we  are  at  the  same  time 
gready  attracted  and  greatly  repelled  our  emotion  of 
fear  will  be  increased;  and  this  will  be  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  one  of  the  Eumenides  when  she  retains  her 
grand  and  noble  features. 

1  Mulready  would  dwell  fondly  on  any  traces  left  on  the  body  by 
special  habits;  he  would  trace  out  the  signs  of  previous  occupations, 
and  so  amuse  himself  by  drawing  up  a  biography  of  his  model.  — 
Article  on  Mulready,  by  Lady  Dilke.  Fortnightly  Review,  September, 
1802.  —  Translator. 


i9o  EXPRESSION 

For  a  man  a  long  oval,  broad  in  the  upper  part, 
narrowing  below,  produces  a  fine  head. 

For  a  woman  and  child  the  oval  is  rounder,  which 
gives  an  expression  of  youth  and  grace. 

A  hair's-breadth  difference  in  the  drawing  of  a  feature 
will  make  it  more  or  less  beautiful. 

What  we  call  grace  is  when  the  motion  of  the  limbs  is 
exactly  suited  to  the  action.  Do  not  take  the  ideas  of  an 
actor  or  of  a  drawing-master  on  this  subject. 

Marcel's  idea  of  grace  is  quite  the  contrary  to  that  of 
the  limbs  in  natural  action.  If  Marcel  met  a  man  in  the 
attitude  of  Antinous  he  would  put  one  hand  under  his 
chin  and  another  on  his  shoulders.  "Come  now,  you 
great  booby,"  he  would  say,  "is  that  the  way  to  hold 
yourself?"  Then  pushing  in  his  knees  with  his  own  and 
raising  him  up  under  the  arms  he  would  add,  "One 
would  think  you  were  made  of  wax  and  were  going  to 
melt.  Come,  you  fool,  straighten  this  leg,  display  your 
figure,  and  don't  drop  your  chin."  And  when  he  had 
made  him  look  like  a  prim  dandy  he  would  begin  to 
smile  and  be  pleased  with  the  effect  of  his  own  work. 

If  you  cannot  feel  the  difference  in  aspect  between  a 
man  in  society  and  a  man  full  of  eager  action,  between  a 
man  as  he  is  alone  or  when  he  knows  himself  observed, 
you  may  throw  your  brushes  into  the  fire. 

You  will  academize,  you  will  pose,  you  will  stiffen  all 
your  figures. 

Shall  I  explain  this  difference  to  you?  You  are  sitting 
alone,  waiting  for  my  articles  which  have  not  yet  come; 
you  think  that  great  people  ought  not  to  be  kept  wait- 
ing. You  are  lying  back  in  your  straw  chair,  your  hands 
on  your  knees,  your  night-cap  well  over  your  forehead, 
and  your  hair  straggling  or  turned  back  carelessly  under 


DENIS  DIDEROT  191 

a  comb;  your  dressing-gown  is  half  open  and  falls  down 
in  long  folds  on  each  side,  you  look  handsome  and  pic- 
turesque. But  the  door  opens,  the  Marquis  de  Castries 
is  announced,  and  you  push  back  your  night-cap,  you 
fold  your  dressing-gown  carefully  together,  and  there 
you  are,  stiff,  upright,  with  all  your  limbs  in  proper 
position,  mannered  and  marcelized  to  please  the  visitor. 
The  artist  would  be  disgusted  at  the  change;  you  were 
picturesque  before  —  you  are  so  no  longer. 

A  Short  Corollary  from  the  Preceding 
Article 

But  what  is  the  use  of  all  these  principles  if  taste  is  a 
capricious  thing  and  if  there  is  no  eternal,  unchangeable 
law  of  beauty? 

If  taste  is  merely  a  matter  of  caprice,  if  there  is  no  law 
of  beauty,  whence  come  those  delicious  emotions  which 
rise  suddenly  and  involuntarily  and  tumultuously  from 
the  depths  of  our  being,  which  loosen  or  tighten  our 
heart-strings  and  force  tears  of  joy,  grief  and  admiration 
from  our  eyes  at  the  sight  of  some  grand  physical  phe- 
nomenon, or  the  hearing  of  some  lofty  moral  trait  of 
character?  Begone,  sophist,  you  will  never  persuade  my 
heart  that  it  did  wrong  to  beat  quicker,  nor  my  emotions 
that  they  ought  not  to  have  been  deeply  stirred. 

The  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful  are  very  nearly 
connected.  Add  to  either  of  the  first  two  qualities  some 
rare  and  striking  circumstance  and  the  true  will  be 
beautiful  and  the  good  will  be  beautiful. 

If  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  movements  of 
three  bodies  merely  refers  to  three  points  on  a  scrap  of 
paper,  it  is  of  no  importance,  it  is  a  purely  speculative 
truth.    But  if  one  of  these  bodies  is  the  star  that  lights 


1 92  EXPRESSION 

us  by  day,  and  the  second  is  the  sphere  that  lights  us  by 
night,  and  the  third  is  the  globe  we  live  in,  the  specula- 
tive truth  immediately  becomes  sublime  and  beautiful. 
One  poet  said  of  another  poet:  He  will  not  go  far,  he 
has  not  found  the  secret.  What  secret?  That  of  describ- 
ing objects  of  real  interest,  fathers,  mothers,  husbands, 
wives,  children. 


THE  NOVEL 

GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT 

i 850-1894 

This  essay  was  published  as  a  preface  to  Pierre  et  'Jean  in 
1887.  Although  Henry  James  one  time  observed  that  "in 
dissertation  M.  de  Maupassant  does  not  write  with  his  best 
pen,"  this  discussion  of  the  novel  is  one  of  the  few  really  lucid 
essays  on  the  subject. 

In  making  the  translation  which  follows,  the  editor  has  pre- 
served the  original  French  paragraphing,  although  it  is  some- 
times strikingly  at  variance  with  English  and  American 
standards. 

I  HAVE  no  intention  of  pleading  here  for  the  little 
novel  which  follows.  Quite  on  the  contrary,  the  ideas 
which  I  shall  try  to  elucidate  would  entail  the  criticism, 
rather,  of  such  a  psychological  study  as  I  have  under- 
taken in  Pierre  et  Jean. 

I  wish  to  devote  myself  here  to  the  Novel  in  general. 

I  am  not  the  only  one  to  whom  the  same  reproach  is 
addressed  by  the  same  critics,  each  time  a  new  book 
appears. 

In  the  midst  of  eulogistic  sentences  I  find  regularly 
this  one,  by  the  same  pens:  "The  greatest  fault  in  this 
work  is  that  it  is  not  a  novel,  properly  speaking." 

One  could  reply  by  the  same  argument:  "The  great- 
est fault  in  the  writer  who  does  me  the  honor  to  judge 
my  work  is  that  he  is  not  a  critic. " 

What  are,  in  truth,  the  essential  characteristics  of  the 
critic? 

Without  prejudice,  without  preconceived  opinions, 
without  the  ideas  of  a  school,  without  affiliations  with 

IQ3 


i94  THE  NOVEL 

any  special  group  of  artists,  he  must  understand,  dis- 
tinguish, and  explain  all  tendencies  the  most  opposite, 
temperaments  the  most  contrary,  and  acknowledge 
artistic  innovations  of  the  most  diverse  character. 

Now  the  critic  who  after  Marion  Lescaut,  Paul  et  Vir- 
ginie,  Don  Quixote,  Les  Liaisons  Dangereuses,  Werther, 
Les  Affinites  Electives,  Claris sa  Harlowe,  Em  He,  Candide, 
Cinq-Mars,  Rene,  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires,  Mauprat, 
Le  Pere  Goriot,  La  Cousine  Bette,  Colomba,  Le  Rouge  et  le 
Noir,  Mademoiselle  de  Maupin,  Notre  Dame  de  Paris, 
Salammbo,  Madame  Bovary,  Adolphe,  M.  de  Camors, 
L'Assommoir,  Sapho,  etc.,  dares  still  to  write  "This  is  a 
novel  and  that  is  not,"  seems  to  me  to  be  endowed  with 
a  perspicacity  which  strongly  resembles  incompetence. 

Ordinarily  the  critic  understands  by  "novel"  an  ad- 
venture more  or  less  probable,  arranged  in  the  fashion  of 
a  drama  in  three  acts,  of  which  the  first  contains  the 
exposition,  the  second  the  action,  and  the  third  the  de- 
nouement. 

This  manner  of  composing  is  absolutely  admissible  on 
condition  that  one  accept  equally  all  the  others. 

Do  rules  exist  for  writing  a  novel,  outside  of  which  a 
written  narrative  ought  to  bear  some  other  name? 

If  Don  Quixote  is  a  novel,  is  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir  an- 
other? If  Monte-Cristo  is  a  novel,  is  L ' Assommoir  one 
also?  Can  any  comparison  be  established  between  Les 
Affinites  Electives  by  Goethe,  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires 
by  Dumas,  Madame  Bovary  by  Flaubert,  M.  de  Camors 
by  O.  Feuillet,  and  Germinal  by  Zola?  Which  of  these 
works  is  a  novel?  What  are  the  precious  rules?  Where 
do  they  come  from?  Who  has  established  them?  And 
in  virtue  of  what  principle,  what  authority,  what  rea- 
soning ? 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  195 

It  seems,  nevertheless,  that  these  critics  know  in  some 
certain,  indubitable  fashion  what  constitutes  a  novel 
and  what  distinguishes  it  from  something  which  is  not 
one.  This  simply  means  that,  without  being  producers, 
they  enlist  in  a  school,  and  that  they  reject,  in  the  man- 
ner of  novelists  themselves,  all  the  works  conceived  and 
executed  outside  of  their  own  scheme  of  aesthetics. 

An  intelligent  critic  ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  seek 
out  everything  that  least  resembles  the  novels  already 
written,  and  to  encourage  young  authors  as  much  as 
possible  to  risk  new  paths. 

All  writers,  Victor  Hugo  as  well  as  M.  Zola,  have 
claimed  with  persistence  the  absolute,  indisputable 
right  of  composing,  that  is  to  say  imagining  or  observ- 
ing, according  to  their  personal  conception  of  art.  Tal- 
ent springs  from  originality,  which  is  a  special  manner 
of  thinking,  of  seeing,  of  understanding,  and  of  judging. 
Now  the  critic  who  presumes  to  define  the  novel  accord- 
ing to  the  idea  he  has  formed  from  the  novels  he  likes, 
and  to  establish  certain  invariable  rules  of  composition, 
will  always  war  against  the  artistic  temperament  that 
introduces  a  new  manner.  A  critic,  if  he  is  really  to 
merit  the  name,  should  be  only  an  analyst,  without  bias, 
without  preferences,  without  passions;  and,  like  a  critic 
of  pictures,  should  consider  only  the  artistic  value  of  the 
object  of  art  submitted  to  him.  His  comprehension, 
open  to  every  impression,  ought  to  absorb  his  personal- 
ity so  completely  that  he  can  discover  and  praise  the 
very  books  which  he  does  not  like  as  a  man  and  must 
evaluate  as  a  judge. 

But  most  critics  are,  in  truth,  only  readers,  from 
which  fact  it  results  that  they  nearly  always  reprove  us 
on  false  grounds,  or  compliment  us  without  reserve  and 
without  measure. 


196  THE  NOVEL 

The  reader,  who  seeks  in  a  book  only  to  satisfy  the 
natural  tendency  of  his  mind,  asks  the  writer  to  satisfy 
his  predominant  taste,  and  he  invariably  characterizes 
as  remarkable  or  as  well  written  the  work  or  the  passage 
which  pleases  his  imagination,  be  his  imagination  ideal- 
istic, gay,  foul,  sad,  dreamy,  or  positive. 

In  brief,  the  public  is  composed  of  numerous  groups 
who  cry  to  us: 

"Console  me." 
"Amuse  me." 
"Make  me  sad." 
"Make  me  sympathetic." 
"Make  me  dream." 
"Make  me  laugh." 
"Make  me  shudder." 
"Make  me  weep." 
"Make  me  think." 
Some  rare  spirits  alone  request  of  the  artist: 
"Make  me  something  beautiful,  in  the  form  which 
suits  you  best,  according  to  your  temperament." 
The  artist  tries,  succeeds  or  fails. 
The  critic  ought  to  judge  the  result  only  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  effort;  and  he  has  no  right  to  preoccupy 
himself  with  tendencies. 

This  has  been  said  a  thousand  times  already.  It  will 
always  be  necessary  to  repeat  it. 

Then,  after  the  literary  schools  which  have  sought  to 
give  us  a  vision  of  life  deformed,  superhuman,  poetic, 
tender,  charming,  or  superb,  comes  a  realistic  or  natural- 
istic school  which  has  professed  to  show  us  the  truth, 
nothing  but  the  truth,  and  all  of  the  truth. 

These  different  theories  of  art  must  be  admitted  with 
equal  interest,  and  the  works  which  they  produce  must 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  197 

be  judged  solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  artistic 
merit,  with  the  acceptance  a  priori  of  the  general  ideas 
which  gave  them  birth. 

To  contest  the  right  of  an  author  to  compose  a  poetic 
work  or  a  realistic  work  is  to  wish  to  force  him  to  modify 
his  temperament,  to  challenge  his  originality,  and  to 
deny  him  the  right  to  use  the  eye  and  the  intelligence 
which  nature  has  given  him. 

To  reproach  him  for  seeing  the  beautiful  or  the  ugly, 
the  small  or  the  epic,  the  gracious  or  the  sinister,  is  to 
reproach  him  for  being  formed  in  such  or  such  fashion 
and  for  not  having  a  vision  that  accords  with  ours. 

Let  us  leave  him  free  to  comprehend,  to  observe,  to 
conceive,  as  he  pleases,  provided  he  be  an  artist.  Let  us 
lift  ourselves  to  poetic  heights  when  we  judge  an  idealist, 
and  show  him  that  his  dream  is  mediocre,  commonplace, 
not  mad  enough,  not  magnificent  enough.  But  if  we 
judge  a  naturalist,  let  us  show  him  in  what  respects  the 
truth  in  life  differs  from  the  truth  in  his  book. 

It  is  evident  that  schools  so  different  must  employ 
methods  of  composition  which  are  absolutely  opposite. 

The  novelist  who  transforms  the  constant,  brutal,  and 
disagreeable  truth,  in  order  to  draw  from  it  an  excep- 
tional and  seducing  adventure,  ought,  without  exagger- 
ated care  for  verisimilitude,  to  manipulate  the  events 
according  to  his  taste,  to  prepare  and  arrange  them  to 
please  the  reader,  to  move  him,  or  to  touch  his  sym- 
pathy. The  plan  of  his  novel  is  only  a  series  of  ingenious 
combinations  leading  skillfully  to  the  climax.  The  in- 
cidents are  disposed  and  graduated  toward  the  point  of 
culmination  and  the  final  effect,  which  is  a  capital  and 
decisive  event,  satisfying  all  the  curiosity  aroused  at  the 
beginning,  putting  up  a  barrier  to  interest,  and  terminat- 


198  THE  NOVEL 

ing  so  completely  the  story  told  that  one  does  not 
longer  care  to  know  what  will  happen  to-morrow  to  the 
most  interesting  of  the  characters. 

The  novelist,  however,  who  professes  to  give  us  an 
exact  image  of  life  ought  to  avoid  carefully  all  linking  of 
events  that  seems  exceptional.  His  aim  is  not  to  tell  a 
story,  to  amuse  us,  to  touch  us,  but  to  force  us  to  think, 
to  understand  the  deep  and  hidden  significance  of 
events.  Through  his  having  seen  and  meditated,  he  sees 
the  universe,  things,  facts,  and  men  in  a  fashion  that  is 
peculiarly  his  own  and  that  results  from  the  total  of  his 
pondered  observations.  It  is  this  personal  vision  of  the 
world  that  he  seeks  to  communicate  to  us  by  reproduc- 
ing it  in  his  book.  In  order  to  move  us  as  he  himself  has 
been  moved  by  the  spectacle  of  life,  he  must  reproduce 
it  before  our  eyes  with  scrupulous  similitude.  He  must, 
then,  compose  his  work  in  a  manner  so  skillful,  so  artful, 
and  in  appearance  so  simple,  that  it  is  impossible  to  per- 
ceive or  to  point  out  the  plan,  to  discover  his  intentions. 

Instead  of  devising  an  adventure  and  unfolding  it  in  a 
manner  suited  to  render  it  interesting  to  the  end,  he  will 
take  his  character  or  characters  at  a  certain  period  of 
their  existence  and  conduct  them,  by  natural  transi- 
tions, to  the  period  following.  In  this  fashion  he  will 
show  how  minds  are  modified  under  the  influence  of 
surrounding  circumstances;  how  the  sentiments  and  the 
passions  develop;  how  we  love  one  another,  how  we  hate 
one  another,  how  we  struggle  in  all  social  conditions; 
how  the  interests  of  the  landlord,  the  interests  of  fi- 
nance, the  interests  of  family,  the  interests  of  politics, 
all  struggle. 

The  acceptability  of  his  plan  will  not  consist,  then,  in 
emotion  or  in  charm,  in  an  attractive  beginning  or  in  a 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  199 

moving  catastrophe,  but  in  the  skillful  grouping  of  little 
significant  facts  from  which  the  definitive  meaning  of 
the  work  will  stand  forth.  If  he  sets  forth  in  three  hun- 
dred pages  ten  years  of  a  life  to  show  what  it  has  been, 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  beings  which  have  surrounded  it, 
and  reveals  its  proper  and  characteristic  signification, 
he  should  know  how  to  eliminate  among  the  innumer- 
able little  daily  events  all  those  which  are  inconsequential 
to  him,  and  how  to  put  in  sharp  light  all  those  which  would 
have  remained  unnoticed  by  observers  less  penetrating, 
and  which  give  to  the  book  its  power,  its  total  effect. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  such  a  method  of  composing,  so 
different  from  the  old,  nai've  procedure,  often  throws  the 
critics  off  the  track,  and  that  they  do  not  discover  all 
the  fine,  secret,  almost  invisible  threads  employed  by 
the  modern  artist  in  place  of  the  single  larger  thread 
that  was  called  the  Plot. 

In  a  word,  if  the  novelist  of  yesterday  selected  and 
recounted  the  crises  of  life,  the  poignant  states  of  the 
soul  and  the  heart,  the  novelist  of  to-day  writes  the  story 
of  the  heart,  the  soul,  and  the  intelligence  in  their  nor- 
mal state.  In  order  to  produce  the  effect  he  strives  for, 
that  is,  the  emotion  of  simple  reality,  and  to  bring  out 
the  artistic  point  that  he  wishes  to  draw  from  it,  that  is, 
the  revelation  of  that  which  is  veritably  the  contempo- 
rary man  before  his  eyes,  he  must  employ  only  facts  of 
an  incontestable  and  unvarying  truth. 

But  in  taking  the  very  point  of  view  of  these  realists, 
one  must  discuss  and  contest  their  theory,  which  seems 
capable  of  being  summed  up  in  these  words:  "Nothing 
but  the  truth,  and  all  of  the  truth." 

Their  intention  being  to  disengage  the  philosophy  of 
certain  unvarying  and  current  facts,  they  must  often 


aoo  THE  NOVEL 

revise  the  events  to  the  profit  of  probability  and  to  the 
detriment  of  truth,  for 

Le  vrai  peut  quelquefois  n'etre  pas  vraisemblable. 

The  realist,  if  he  is  an  artist,  will  seek,  not  to  show  us 
a  commonplace  photograph  of  life,  but  to  give  to  us  a 
more  complete,  more  striking,  more  convincing  view 
than  the  reality  itself. 

To  tell  everything  would  be  impossible,  for  it  would 
require  at  least  a  volume  a  day  to  record  the  multitudes 
of  unimportant  incidents  that  fill  our  lives. 

Selection,  therefore,  is  necessary  —  which  is  the  first 
blow  to  the  theory  of  "all  the  truth." 

Life,  moreover,  is  made  up  of  things  the  most  widely 
diversified,  the  most  unforeseen,  the  most  opposite,  the 
most  disparate;  life  is  brutal,  without  sequence,  without 
connection,  full  of  inexplicable,  illogical,  and  contra- 
dictory catastrophes  which  ought  to  be  classed  under 
the  heading,  sundry  j acts. 

Here  is  the  reason  why  the  artist,  having  chosen  his 
theme,  will  take  from  this  life,  encumbered  with  hazards 
and  futilities,  only  the  characteristic  details  useful  to  his 
subject;  and  he  will  reject  all  of  the  rest. 

One  example  among  a  thousand: 

The  number  of  people  who  die  by  accident  every  day 
in  this  world  is  considerable.  But  can  we  make  a  tile 
fall  on  the  head  of  the  principal  character,  or  throw 
him  under  the  wheels  of  a  carriage,  in  the  middle  of 
a  story,  under  pretext  that  it  is  necessary  to  have  an 
accident? 

Life,  moreover,  leaves  everything  on  the  same  scale; 
it  precipitates  facts  or  stretches  them  out  indefinitely. 
Art,  on  the  contrary,  consists  of  using  precautions  and 


$TAT»:  TEACWEt  1  C'L'ECI 
SA,TA  BARBARA.  CALIFlRRI 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  201 

making  preparations,  of  contriving  artful  and  unob- 
served transitions,  of  putting  in  full  light,  by  simple  in- 
genuity of  composition,  the  essential  events,  and  of 
giving  to  all  the  others  the  degree  of  relief  that  belongs 
to  them,  according  to  their  importance,  in  order  to  pro- 
duce a  profound  impression  of  the  special  truth  which 
one  wishes  to  show. 

To  be  truthful,  then,  consists  of  giving  a  complete 
illusion  of  truth,  according  to  the  ordinary  logic  of  facts, 
and  not  in  transcribing  them  servilely  in  the  chaotic 
order  of  their  occurrence. 

So  I  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  Realists  of  talent 
ought  rather  to  call  themselves  the  Illusionists. 

What  childishness,  anyhow,  to  believe  in  reality  when 
each  one  of  us  carries  his  own  reality  in  his  thought  and 
his  organs  of  perception!  Our  eyes,  our  ears,  our  sense 
of  smell,  our  different  tastes,  create  as  many  truths  as 
there  are  men  on  the  earth.  And  our  minds  which  re- 
ceive information  from  these  sense-organs,  being  differ- 
ently impressed,  understand,  analyze,  and  judge  as  if 
each  one  of  us  belonged  to  a  different  race. 

Each  of  us,  then,  simply  makes  his  own  illusion  of  the 
world — illusion  poetic,  sentimental,  joyous,  melan- 
choly, foul,  or  dismal  —  according  to  his  nature.  And 
the  writer  has  no  mission  other  than  to  reproduce  faith- 
fully this  illusion,  with  all  the  processes  of  art  that  he 
has  learned  and  can  bring  to  bear. 

Illusion  of  the  beautiful,  a  human  convention!  Illu- 
sion of  the  ugly,  a  changing  opinion!  Illusion  of  the 
true,  never  unchanging!  Illusion  of  the  ignoble,  attrac- 
tive to  so  many!  The  great  artists  are  those  who  impose 
upon  humanity  their  particular  illusion. 

Let  us  not  become  angry,  then,  with  any  theory,  since 


202  THE  NOVEL 

each  of  them  is  simply  the  generalized  expression  of  a 
temperament  which  analyzes  itself. 

There  are  two  theories,  above  all,  that  have  often 
been  discussed,  one  set  over  against  the  other  instead  of 
both  being  admitted;  namely,  that  of  the  purely  analy- 
tical novel  and  that  of  the  objective  novel.  The  parti- 
sans of  analysis  demand  that  the  writer  shall  endeavor 
to  indicate  the  slightest  evolutions  of  a  soul  and  all  the 
most  secret  motives  which  determine  conduct,  allowing 
to  the  action  itself  only  a  very  secondary  importance. 
That  is  the  point  arrived  at,  a  simple  limit,  the  pretext 
for  the  novel.  It  would  be  necessary,  then,  according  to 
them,  to  write  those  precise  and  fanciful  works  in  which 
imagination  is  confused  with  observation,  after  the 
manner  of  a  philosopher  composing  a  book  on  psychol- 
ogy, to  set  forth  causes  by  following  them  to  their  most 
distant  origins,  to  tell  the  why  of  every  wish,  and  to 
discern  all  the  reactions  of  the  soul  moving  under  the 
impulse  of  interests,  of  passions,  or  of  instincts. 

The  partisans  of  objectivity  (what  a  vile  word!),  pre- 
tending on  the  contrary  to  give  us  the  exact  representa- 
tion of  what  takes  place  in  life,  carefully  avoid  every 
complicated  explanation,  every  dissertation  on  motives, 
and  limit  themselves  to  causing  to  pass  before  our  eyes 
the  characters  and  the  events. 

For  them,  psychology  ought  to  be  hidden  in  the  book 
as  it  is  hidden  in  reality  under  the  facts  of  existence. 

The  novel  conceived  in  this  manner  gains  thereby 
in  interest,  in  narrative  movement,  in  color,  and  in  the 
bustle  of  life. 

Thus,  instead  of  explaining  at  length  the  state  of 
mind  of  a  character,  the  objective  writers  seek  the  ac- 
tion or  the  gesture  to  which  this  state  of  mind  would 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  203 

inevitably  lead  a  man  in  a  given  situation.  And  they 
make  him  conduct  himself  in  such  a  manner,  from  one 
end  of  the  volume  to  the  other,  that  all  of  his  acts,  all  of 
his  movements,  are  the  reflection  of  his  inmost  nature, 
of  all  his  thoughts,  of  all  his  resolves,  or  of  all  his  hesita- 
tions. They  hide  their  psychology,  then,  instead  of  dis- 
playing it;  they  make  of  it  the  frame  of  the  work,  as  the 
invisible  skeleton  is  the  frame  of  the  human  body.  The 
painter  who  makes  our  portrait  does  not  show  our  skele- 
ton. 

It  seems  to  me,  moreover,  that  the  novel  executed  in 
this  fashion  gains  thereby  in  sincerity.  It  is,  in  the  first 
place,  more  probable,  for  the  people  whom  we  see  living 
around  us  do  not  relate  to  us  the  motives  they  obey. 

In  the  next  place,  it  must  be  remembered  that  if  by 
observing  men  we  can  determine  their  nature  accurately 
enough  to  foresee  their  mode  of  conduct  in  almost  all 
circumstances  —  if  we  can  say  with  precision:  "Such  a 
man,  of  such  a  temperament,  in  such  a  case,  will  do 
this"  —  it  does  not  follow  at  all  that  we  are  able  to  de- 
termine, one  by  one,  all  the  secret  evolutions  of  his 
thought,  which  is  not  ours;  all  the  mysterious  solicita- 
tions of  his  instincts,  which  do  not  resemble  ours;  all  the 
confused  incitements  of  his  nature,  of  which  the  organs, 
the  nerves,  the  blood,  the  flesh,  are  different  from  ours. 

Whatever  be  the  genius  of  a  feeble,  gentle,  passionless 
man,  loving  only  knowledge  and  work,  he  will  never  be 
able  to  transport  himself  so  completely  into  the  soul  and 
body  of  an  exuberant,  sensual,  violent  rascal,  excited  by 
every  desire  and  even  every  vice,  as  to  understand  and 
set  forth  the  inmost  impulses  and  the  sensations  of  this 
very  different  being,  even  though  he  can  well  foresee 
and  recount  all  the  acts  of  the  other's  life. 


2o4  THE  NOVEL 

In  brief,  he  who  writes  the  pure  psychology  can  only 
substitute  himself  for  his  characters  in  the  different  situa- 
tions in  which  he  places  them,  for  it  is  impossible  for  him 
to  change  his  organs,  which  are  the  sole  intermediaries 
between  the  external  life  and  us,  which  impose  on  us 
their  perceptions,  determine  our  sensibility,  create  in  us 
a  soul  essentially  different  from  all  those  around  us. 
Our  outlook,  our  knowledge  of  the  world  acquired  by 
the  aid  of  our  senses,  our  ideas  of  life,  cannot  fail  to  be 
transferred  in  part  to  the  characters  whose  most  inti- 
mate and  unknown  self  we  profess  to  reveal.  It  is,  then, 
always  ourselves  whom  we  exhibit  in  the  body  of  a  king, 
of  an  assassin,  of  a  thief,  of  an  honest  man,  of  a  courte- 
san, of  a  nun,  of  a  young  girl,  or  of  a  market-woman;  for 
we  are  obliged  to  put  the  problem  in  this  way:  "  If/  were 
king,  assassin,  robber,  courtesan,  nun,  young  girl,  or 
market-woman,  what  would  /  do,  what  would  /  think, 
how  would  /  act?"  We  can,  then,  diversify  the  char- 
acters in  our  writing  only  by  changing  the  age,  the  sex, 
the  social  situation  and  all  the  circumstances  of  the  life 
of  our  /,  which  nature  has  surrounded  with  an  insuper- 
able barrier  of  organs. 

Ingenuity  consists  in  not  letting  the  reader  recognize 
this  /  under  the  different  masks  which  serve  to  conceal 
it. 

But  if,  from  the  sole  point  of  view  of  complete  exacti- 
tude, the  purely  psychological  analysis  is  open  to  ques- 
tion, it  can  give  us,  nevertheless,  some  works  of  art  as 
beautiful  as  all  the  other  methods  of  working. 

Here  we  have  to-day  the  Symbolists.  Why  not?  Their 
dream  as  artists  is  respectable;  and  they  have  this  that 
is  particularly  interesting;  namely,  that  they  know  and 
that  they  proclaim  the  extreme  difficulty  of  art. 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  205 

One  must,  in  fact,  be  very  mad,  very  audacious,  very 
presumptuous,  or  very  stupid  to  write  nowadays.  After 
so  many  masters  of  such  varied  natures,  of  such  mani- 
fold genius,  what  remains  to  be  done  that  has  not  been 
done,  what  remains  to  be  said  that  has  not  been  said? 
Who  among  us  can  boast  that  he  has  written  one  page, 
one  sentence,  that  might  not  have  been  found,  almost 
identically,  somewhere?  When  we  read,  we,  so  satu- 
rated with  French  writings  that  our  entire  body  gives  the 
impression  of  being  made  up  of  words,  do  we  ever  find  a 
line,  a  thought,  which  is  not  familiar  to  us,  or  of  which 
we  have  not  had  at  least  the  confused  presentiment? 

The  man  who  seeks  only  to  amuse  his  public  by  means 
already  known,  writes  with  confidence,  in  the  candor  of 
his  mediocrity,  some  works  destined  to  the  ignorant, 
unoccupied  crowd.  But  those  on  whom  all  the  centuries 
of  past  literature  weigh  heavily,  those  whom  nothing 
satisfies,  who  are  disgusted  with  everything  because 
they  dream  of  something  better,  to  whom  the  flowers 
seem  already  gathered,  to  whom  their  own  work  gives 
always  the  impression  of  useless  and  common  labor  — 
these  come  to  judge  literary  art  as  something  evasive, 
mysterious,  which  a  number  of  pages  of  the  greatest 
masters  scarcely  reveal  to  us. 

Twenty  lines  of  verse,  twenty  sentences  of  prose,  read 
suddenly,  thrill  us  to  the  heart  as  a  surprising  revela- 
tion; but  the  lines  that  follow  seem  like  all  other  verse, 
and  the  prose  which  comes  next  seems  like  all  other 
prose. 

Men  of  genius,  without  doubt,  do  not  have  these  trib- 
ulations and  torments,  because  such  men  bear  in  them- 
selves an  irresistible  creative  force.  They  do  not  offer 
judgment  on  themselves.  Others,  however  —  we  others 


206  THE  NOVEL 

who  are  simply  conscientious  and  persistent  workers  — 
can  struggle  against  invincible  discouragement  only  by 
continuity  of  effort. 

Two  men,  by  their  simple  and  luminous  teachings, 
have  given  me  this  power  of  holding  on  persistently: 
Louis  Bouilhet  and  Gustave  Flaubert. 

If  I  speak  here  of  them  and  myself,  it  is  because  their 
counsel,  summed  up  in  a  few  lines,  will  perhaps  be  use- 
ful to  some  young  persons  less  confident  in  themselves 
than  one  ordinarily  is  when  one  enters  the  field  of  letters. 

Bouilhet,  whom  I  first  knew  rather  intimately,  about 
two  years  before  I  gained  the  friendship  of  Flaubert,  by 
constantly  repeating  to  me  that  a  hundred  lines  of 
verse,  perhaps  less,  are  sufficient  to  make  the  reputation 
of  an  artist,  if  they  are  irreproachable  and  if  they  em- 
body the  essence  of  the  talent  and  the  originality  of  a 
man  of  even  the  second  order,  made  me  understand  that 
constant  labor  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  one's  crart 
can,  on  some  day  of  lucidity,  of  power,  and  of  enthusi- 
asm, by  our  happy  meeting  with  a  subject  fully  in  har- 
mony with  all  the  tendencies  of  our  spirit,  quicken  into 
life  a  short  work,  unique  and  as  perfect  as  we  can  make 
it. 

I  came  to  see,  in  the  next  place,  that  the  best  known 
writers  have  almost  never  left  more  than  one  volume, 
and  that  it  is  necessary,  before  all  else,  to  have  this  op- 
portunity to  find  and  to  discern,  in  the  midst  of  the  mul- 
titude of  matters  that  present  themselves  to  our  choice, 
that  which  will  absorb  all  of  our  faculties,  all  of  our 
courage,  all  of  our  artistic  power. 

Later,  Flaubert,  whom  I  saw  occasionally,  took  a  lik- 
ing to  me.  I  dared  to  submit  to  him  some  of  my  efforts. 
He  read  them  with  kindness  and  replied  to  me:  "I  do 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  207 

not  know  whether  you  have  talent.  What  you  have 
brought  to  me  reveals  a  certain  intelligence;  but  do  not 
forget  this,  young  man,  that  talent  —  in  the  words  of 
Buffon  —  is  only  long  patience.   Work  on." 

I  worked  on,  and  I  often  went  back  to  see  him,  since 
I  observed  that  he  liked  me,  for  he  was  accustomed  to 
refer  to  me,  laughingly,  as  his  disciple. 

During  seven  years  I  wrote  verse,  I  wrote  short  sto- 
ries, I  wrote  novelettes,  I  even  wrote  a  detestable  drama. 
Nothing  remains  of  these.  The  master  read  all;  then  on 
the  Sunday  following,  at  lunch,  he  would  develop  his 
criticism  and  drive  in,  little  by  little,  two  or  three  prin- 
ciples that  are  the  sum  of  his  long  and  patient  teachings. 
"If  one  has  an  originality,"  he  said,  "the  first  thing 
necessary  is  to  develop  it;  if  one  has  none,  it  is  necessary 
to  acquire  one." 

—  Talent  is  long  patience.  When  one  has  something 
to  express,  he  must  look  at  it  so  long  and  with  such  close 
attention  that  he  discovers  in  it  some  aspect  that  has 
not  been  seen  and  expressed  by  anyone  else.  In  every- 
thing there  is  something  of  the  unexplored,  because  we 
are  accustomed  to  use  our  eyes  only  in  connection  with 
our  memory  of  what  has  been  thought  before  us  on  the 
subject  we  contemplate.  The  least  object  contains  a 
little  of  the  unknown.  Let  us  find  it.  In  order  to  de- 
scribe a  fire  that  flames  and  a  tree  on  the  plain,  let  us 
stay  in  the  presence  of  that  fire  and  that  tree  until  they 
have  ceased  to  resemble,  for  us,  any  other  tree  or  any 
other  fire. 

It  is  in  this  manner  that  one  becomes  original. 

Having,  moreover,  posited  this  truth  that  there  are 
not,  in  the  whole  world,  two  grains  of  sand,  two  flies, 
two  hands,  or  two  noses  absolutely  alike,  he  required 


208  THE  NOVEL 

me  to  describe^  in  a  few  sentences,  a  being  or  an  object 
in  such  a  way  as  to  particularize  it  sharply,  to  distin- 
guish it  from  all  the  other  beings  or  all  the  other  objects 
of  the  same  species  or  the  same  class. 

"When  you  pass,"  he  used  to  say  to  me,  "before  a 
grocer  seated  at  his  door,  before  a  janitor  who  smokes 
his  pipe,  before  a  stand  of  coaches,  show  me  this  grocer 
and  this  janitor,  their  pose,  their  whole  physical  appear- 
ance, including  also  —  indicated  by  the  ingenuity  of  the 
picture  —  their  whole  moral  nature,  in  such  fashion  that 
I  cannot  confuse  them  with  any  other  grocer,  or  any 
other  janitor;  and  make  me  see,  by  a  single  word  in 
what  respect  one  coach  horse  differs  in  appearance  from 
fifty  others  that  follow  him  or  precede  him. " 

I  have  explained  elsewhere  his  ideas  on  style.  They 
are  in  accord  with  the  theory  of  observation  that  I  have 
just  set  forth. 

Whatever  be  the  thing  one  wishes  to  say,  there  is 
only  one  word  to  express  it,  only  one  verb  to  animate  it, 
only  one  adjective  to  qualify  it.  It  is  necessary,  then,  to 
search  till  one  has  discovered  that  word,  that  verb,  that 
adjective,  and  never  to  be  content  with  almost  finding 
it,  never  to  have  recourse  to  trickery,  never  to  resort  to 
the  buffooneries  of  language  in  order  to  avoid  the  diffi- 
culty. 

One  can  interpret  and  characterize  the  subtlest  things 
by  bearing  in  mind  the  line  of  Boileau: 

D'un  mot  mis  en  sa  place  enseigna  le  pouvoir. 

There  is  no  need  of  the  bizarre,  complicated,  crowded, 
and  Chinese-like  vocabulary  imposed  upon  us  to-day 
under  the  name  of  artistic  writing,  in  order  to  express 
all  shades  of  thought;  but  it  is  necessary  to  discern  with 


GUY  DE  MAUPASSANT  209 

extreme  clearness  all  the  modifications  of  the  value  of  a 
word  according  to  the  place  it  occupies.  Let  us  have 
fewer  nouns,  verbs,  and  adjectives  with  almost  imper- 
ceptible meanings,  and  greater  variety  of  sentences, 
diversely  constructed,  ingeniously  divided,  full  of  sono- 
rousness and  skillful  rhythms.  Let  us  make  ourselves 
excellent  stylists  rather  than  collectors  of  rare  terms. 

It  is,  in  truth,  more  difficult  to  manage  the  sentence  at 
will,  to  make  it  say  everything,  even  that  which  it  does 
not  declare  openly,  to  fill  it  with  hidden  meanings,  with 
secret  and  unformulated  suggestions,  than  to  invent  new 
expressions  or  to  search  out,  in  the  depths  of  old,  un- 
known books,  all  those  which  have  lost  their  usage  and 
their  signification,  and  which  are  for  us  as  dead  verbs. 

The  French  language,  moreover,  is  a  pure  stream 
which  the  manneristic  writers  have  never  been  able, 
and  never  shall  be  able,  to  disturb.  Each  century  has 
thrown  into  this  limpid  current  its  particular  fashions, 
its  pretentious  archaisms  and  its  preciosities,  without 
leaving  afloat  any  of  these  useless  attempts,  any  of 
these  impotent  efforts.  The  nature  of  this  language  is 
to  be  clear,  logical,  and  vigorous.  It  will  not  permit  it- 
self to  be  enfeebled,  obscured,  or  corrupted. 

Those  who  to-day  write  their  descriptions  without 
guarding  against  abstract  terms,  those  who  have  the 
hail  or  the  rain  fall  on  the  cleanness  of  the  window-panes, 
can  also  throw  some  stones  at  the  simplicity  of  their  col- 
leagues. These  stones  may  hit  the  colleagues,  who  have 
a  body,  but  they  will  never  reach  the  simplicity,  which 
has  none. 


THE  ART  OF  FICTION  i 

HENRY  JAMES 

1843-1919 

"The  Art  of  Fiction"  was  published  in  Longmans  Maga- 
zine in  1884  and  was  reprinted  in  Partial  Portraits  (The  Mac- 
millan  Company)  in  1888.  The  title  of  the  essay  was  taken 
from  a  paper  that  Walter  Besant  had  written  and  that  evoked 
Henry  James's  discussion  of  the  novel.  Stevenson  in  his  "A 
Humble  Remonstrance"  discusses  both  of  the  essays.  There 
he  characterizes  Henry  James  as  "so  precise  of  outline,  so 
cunning  of  fence,  so  scrupulous  of  finish." 

The  introductory  pages  of  the  essay,  in  which  the  issue  with 
Walter  Besant  is  presented,  are  here  omitted. 

A  NOVEL  is  in  its  broadest  definition  a  personal,  a 
direct  impression  of  life:  that,  to  begin  with,  con- 
stitutes its  value,  which  is  greater  or  less  according  to 
the  intensity  of  the  impression.  But  there  will  be  no 
intensity  at  all,  and  therefore  no  value,  unless  there  is 
freedom  to  feel  and  say.  The  tracing  of  a  line  to  be  fol- 
lowed, of  a  tone  to  be  taken,  of  a  form  to  be  filled  out,  is 
a  limitation  of  that  freedom  and  suppression  of  the  very 
thing  that  we  are  most  curious  about.  The  form,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  to  be  appreciated  after  the  fact:  then  the 
author's  choice  has  been  made,  his  standard  has  been 
indicated;  then  we  can  follow  lines  and  directions  and 
compare  tones  and  resemblances.  Then  in  a  word  we 
can  enjoy  one  of  the  most  charming  of  pleasures,  we  can 
estimate  quality,  we  can  apply  the  test  of  execution. 
The  execution  belongs  to  the  author  alone;  it  is  what  is 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  executor  of  the  estate  of  Henry 
James. 


HENRY  JAMES  211 

most  personal  to  him,  and  we  measure  him  by  that. 
The  advantage,  the  luxury,  as  well  as  the  torment  and 
responsibility  of  the  novelist,  is  that  there  is  no  limit 
to  what  he  may  attempt  as  an  executant  —  no  limit  to 
his  possible  experiments,  efforts,  discoveries,  successes. 
Here  it  is  especially  that  he  works,  step  by  step,  like  his 
brother  of  the  brush,  of  whom  we  may  always  say  that 
he  has  painted  his  picture  in  a  manner  best  known  to 
himself.  His  manner  is  his  secret,  not  necessarily  a  jeal- 
ous one.  He  cannot  disclose  it  as  a  general  thing  if  he 
would;  he  would  be  at  a  loss  to  teach  it  to  others.  I  say 
this  with  a  due  recollection  of  having  insisted  on  the 
community  of  method  of  the  artist  who  paints  a  picture 
and  the  artist  who  writes  a  novel.  The  painter  is  able 
to  teach  the  rudiments  of  his  practice,  and  it  is  possible, 
from  the  study  of  good  work  (granted  the  aptitude), 
both  to  learn  how  to  paint  and  to  learn  how  to  write. 
Yet  it  remains  true,  without  injury  to  the  rapprochement, 
that  the  literary  artist  would  be  obliged  to  say  to  his 
pupil  much  more  than  the  other,  "  Ah,  well,  you  must  do 
it  as  you  can!"  It  is  a  question  of  degree,  a  matter  of 
delicacy.  If  there  are  exact  sciences,  there  are  also  exact 
arts,  and  the  grammar  of  painting  is  so  much  more  defi- 
nite that  it  makes  the  difference. 

I  ought  to  add,  however,  that  if  Mr.  Besant  says  at 
the  beginning  of  his  essay  that  the  "laws  of  fiction  may 
be  laid  down  and  taught  with  as  much  precision  and 
exactness  as  the  laws  of  harmony,  perspective,  and  pro- 
portion," he  mitigates  what  might  appear  to  be  an  ex- 
travagance by  applying  his  remark  to  "general"  laws, 
and  by  expressing  most  of  these  rules  in  a  manner  with 
which  it  would  certainly  be  unaccommodating  to  dis- 
agree. That  the  novelist  must  write  from  his  experience, 


212  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

that  his  "characters  must  be  real  and  such  as  might  be 
met  with  in  actual  life";  that  "a  young  lady  brought  up 
in  a  quiet  country  village  should  avoid  descriptions  of 
garrison  life,"  and  "a  writer  whose  friends  and  personal 
experiences  belong  to  the  lower  middle-class  should 
carefully  avoid  introducing  his  characters  into  society"; 
that  one  should  enter  one's  notes  in  a  commonplace 
book;  that  one's  figures  should  be  clear  in  outline;  that 
making  them  clear  by  some  trick  of  speech  or  of  carriage 
is  a  bad  method,  and  "describing  them  at  length"  is  a 
worse  one;  that  English  Fiction  should  have  a  "con- 
scious moral  purpose";  that  "it  is  almost  impossible  to 
estimate  too  highly  the  value  of  careful  workmanship  — 
that  is,  of  style";  that  "the  most  important  point  of  all 
is  the  story,"  that  "the  story  is  everything":  these  are 
principles  with  most  of  which  it  is  surely  impossible  not 
to  sympathize.  That  remark  about  the  lower  middle- 
class  writer  and  his  knowing  his  place  is  perhaps  rather 
chilling;  but  for  the  rest  I  should  find  it  difficult  to  dis- 
sent from  any  one  of  these  recommendations.  At  the 
same  time,  I  should  find  it  difficult  positively  to  assent 
to  them,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  injunction 
as  to  entering  one's  notes  in  a  commonplace  book. 
They  scarcely  seem  to  me  to  have  the  quality  that  Mr. 
Besant  attributes  to  the  rules  of  the  novelist — the 
"precision  and  exactness"  of  "the  laws  of  harmony, 
perspective,  and  proportion."  They  are  suggestive, 
they  are  even  inspiring,  but  they  are  not  exact,  though 
they  are  doubtless  as  much  so  as  the  case  admits  of: 
which  is  a  proof  of  that  liberty  of  interpretation  for 
which  I  just  contended.  For  the  value  of  these  different 
injunctions —  so  beautiful  and  so  vague —  is  wholly  in 
the  meaning  one  attaches  to  them.    The  characters, 


HENRY  JAMES  213 

the  situation,  which  strike  one  as  real  will  be  those  that 
touch  and  interest  one  most,  but  the  measure  of  reality 
is  very  difficult  to  fix.  The  reality  of  Don  Quixote  or  of 
Mr.  Micawber  is  a  very  delicate  shade;  it  is  a  reality  so 
coloured  by  the  author's  vision  that,  vivid  as  it  may  be, 
one  would  hesitate  to  propose  it  as  a  model:  one  would 
expose  one's  self  to  some  very  embarrassing  questions  on 
the  part  of  a  pupil.  It  goes  without  saying  that  you  will 
not  write  a  good  novel  unless  you  possess  the  sense  of  real- 
ity; but  it  will  be  difficult  to  give  you  a  recipe  for  calling 
that  sense  into  being.  Humanity  is  immense,  and  reality 
has  a  myriad  forms;  the  most  one  can  affirm  is  that 
some  of  the  flowers  of  fiction  have  the  odour  of  it,  and 
others  have  not;  as  for  telling  you  in  advance  how  your 
nosegay  should  be  composed,  that  is  another  affair.  It  is 
equally  excellent  and  inconclusive  to  say  that  one  must 
write  from  experience;  to  our  supposititious  aspirant 
such  a  declaration  might  savour  of  mockery.  What  kind 
of  experience  is  intended,  and  where  does  it  begin  and 
end?  Experience  is  never  limited,  and  it  is  never  com- 
plete; it  is  an  immense  sensibility,  a  kind  of  huge  spider- 
web  of  the  finest  silken  threads  suspended  in  the  cham- 
ber of  consciousness,  and  catching  every  air-borne  parti- 
cle in  its  tissue.  It  is  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  mind; 
and  when  the  mind  is  imaginative  —  much  more  when 
it  happens  to  be  that  of  a  man  of  genius  —  it  takes  to  it- 
self the  faintest  hints  of  life,  it  converts  the  very  pulses 
of  the  air  into  revelations.  The  young  lady  living  in  a 
village  has  only  to  be  a  damsel  upon  whom  nothing  is 
lost  to  make  it  quite  unfair  (as  it  seems  to  me)  to  declare 
to  her  that  she  shall  have  nothing  to  say  about  the  mili- 
tary. Greater  miracles  have  been  seen  than  that,  imag- 
ination assisting,  she  should  speak  the  truth  about  some 


2i4  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

of  these  gentlemen.  I  remember  an  English  novelist,  a 
woman  of  genius,  telling  me  that  she  was  much  com- 
mended for  the  impression  she  had  managed  to  give  in 
one  of  her  tales  of  the  nature  and  way  of  life  of  the 
French  Protestant  youth.  She  had  been  asked  where 
she  learned  so  much  about  this  recondite  being,  she  had 
been  congratulated  on  her  peculiar  opportunities.  These 
opportunities  consisted  in  her  having  once,  in  Paris,  as 
she  ascended  a  staircase,  passed  an  open  door  where,  in 
the  household  of  a  pasteur,  some  of  the  young  Protes- 
tants were  seated  at  table  round  a  finished  meal.  The 
glimpse  made  a  picture;  it  lasted  only  a  moment,  but 
that  moment  was  experience.  She  had  got  her  direct 
personal  impression,  and  she  turned  out  her  type.  She 
knew  what  youth  was,  and  what  Protestantism;  she  also 
had  the  advantage  of  having  seen  what  it  was  to  be 
French,  so  that  she  converted  these  ideas  into  a  concrete 
image  and  produced  a  reality.  Above  all,  however,  she 
was  blessed  with  the  faculty  which  when  you  give  it  an 
inch  takes  an  ell,  and  which  for  the  artist  is  a  much 
greater  source  of  strength  than  any  accident  of  residence 
or  of  place  in  the  social  scale.  The  power  to  guess  the 
unseen  from  the  seen,  to  trace  the  implication  of  things, 
to  judge  the  whole  piece  by  the  pattern,  the  condition  of 
feeling  life  in  general  so  completely  that  you  are  well  on 
your  way  to  knowing  any  particular  corner  of  it  —  this 
cluster  of  gifts  may  almost  be  said  to  constitute  expe- 
rience, and  they  occur  in  country  and  in  town,  and  in  the 
most  differing  stages  of  education.  If  experience  con- 
sists of  impressions,  it  may  be  said  that  impressions  are 
experience,  just  as  (have  we  not  seen  it?)  they  are  the 
very  air  we  breathe.  Therefore,  if  I  should  certainly  say 
to  a  novice,  "Write  from  experience  and  experience 


HENRY  JAMES  215 

only,"  I  should  feel  that  this  was  rather  a  tantalizing 
monition  if  I  were  not  careful  immediately  to  add,  "Try 
to  be  one  of  the  people  on  whom  nothing  is  lost!" 

I  am  far  from  intending  by  this  to  minimize  the  im- 
portance of  exactness  —  of  truth  of  detail.  One  can 
speak  best  from  one's  own  taste,  and  I  may  therefore 
venture  to  say  that  the  air  of  reality  (solidity  of  specifi- 
cation) seems  to  me  to  be  the  supreme  virtue  of  a  novel 
—  the  merit  on  which  all  its  other  merits  (including  that 
conscious  moral  purpose  of  which  Mr.  Besant  speaks) 
helplessly  and  submissively  depend.  If  it  be  not  there 
they  are  all  as  nothing,  and  if  these  be  there,  they  owe 
their  effect  to  the  success  with  which  the  author  has  pro- 
duced the  illusion  of  life..  The  cultivation  of  this  success, 
the  study  of  this  exquisite  process,  form,  to  my  taste,  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  the  art  of  the  novelist.  They 
are  his  inspiration,  his  despair,  his  reward,  his  torment, 
his  delight.  It  is  here  in  very  truth  that  he  competes 
with  life;  it  is  here  that  he  competes  with  his  brother  the 
painter  in  his  attempt  to  render  the  look  of  things,  the 
look  that  conveys  their  meaning,  to  catch  the  colour, 
the  relief,  the  expression,  the  surface,  the  substance  of 
the  human  spectacle.  It  is  in  regard  to  this  that  Mr. 
Besant  is  well  inspired  when  he  bids  him  take  notes.  He 
cannot  possibly  take  too  many,  he  cannot  possibly  take 
enough.  All  life  solicits  him,  and  to  "render"  the  sim- 
plest surface,  to  produce  the  most  momentary  illusion,  is 
a  very  complicated  business.  His  case  would  be  easier, 
and  the  rule  would  be  more  exact,  if  Mr.  Besant  had 
been  able  to  tell  him  what  notes  to  take.  But  this,  I  fear, 
he  can  never  learn  in  any  manual;  it  is  the  business  of 
his  life.  He  has  to  take  a  great  many  in  order  to  select  a 
few,  he  has  to  work  them  up  as  he  can,  and  even  the 


216  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

guides  and  philosophers  who  might  have  most  to  say  to 
him  must  leave  him  alone  when  it  comes  to  the  applica- 
tion of  precepts,  as  we  leave  the  painter  in  communion 
with  his  palette.  That  his  characters  "must  be  clear  in 
outline,"  as  Mr.  Besant  says — he  feels  that  down  to 
his  boots;  but  how  he  shall  make  them  so  is  a  secret  be- 
tween his  good  angel  and  himself.  It  would  be  absurdly 
simple  if  he  could  be  taught  that  a  great  deal  of  "descrip- 
tion "  would  make  them  so,  or  that  on  the  contrary  the 
absence  of  description  and  the  cultivation  of  dialogue, 
or  the  absence  of  dialogue  and  the  multiplication  of  "  in- 
cident," would  rescue  him  from  his  difficulties.  Nothing, 
for  instance,  is  more  possible  than  that  he  be  of  a  turn  of 
mind  for  which  this  odd,  literal  opposition  of  description 
and  dialogue,  incident  and  description,  has  little  mean- 
ing and  light.  People  often  talk  of  these  things  as  if  they 
had  a  kind  of  internecine  distinctness,  instead  of  melting 
into  each  other  at  every  breath,  and  being  intimately 
associated  parts  of  one  general  effort  of  expression.  I 
cannot  imagine  composition  existing  in  a  series  of  blocks, 
nor  conceive,  in  any  novel  worth  discussing  at  all,  of  a 
passage  of  description  that  is  not  in  its  intention  narra- 
tive, a  passage  of  dialogue  that  is  not  in  its  intention 
descriptive,  a  touch  of  truth  of  any  sort  that  does  not 
partake  of  the  nature  of  incident,  or  an  incident  that  de- 
rives its  interest  from  any  other  source  than  the  general 
and  only  source  of  the  success  of  a  work  of  art  —  that  of 
being  illustrative.  A  novel  is  a  living  thing,  all  one  and 
continuous,  like  any  other  organism,  and  in  proportion 
as  it  lives  will  it  be  found,  I  think,  that  in  each  of  the 
parts  there  is  something  of  each  of  the  other  parts.  The 
critic  who  over  the  close  texture  of  a  finished  work  shall 
pretend  to  trace  a  geography  of  items  will  mark  some 


HENRY  JAMES  217 

frontiers  as  artificial,  I  fear,  as  any  that  have  been  known 
to  history.  There  is  an  old-fashioned  distinction  between 
the  novel  of  character  and  the  novel  of  incident  which 
must  have  cost  many  a  smile  to  the  intending  fabulist 
who  was  keen  about  his  work.  It  appears  to  me  as  little 
to  the  point  as  the  equally  celebrated  distinction  be- 
tween the  novel  and  the  romance — to  answer  as  little  to 
any  reality.  There  are  bad  novels  and  good  novels,  as 
there  are  bad  pictures  and  good  pictures;  but  that  is  the 
only  distinction  in  which  I  see  any  meaning,  and  I  can 
as  little  imagine  speaking  of  a  novel  of  character  as  I  can 
imagine  speaking  of  a  picture  of  character.  When  one 
says  picture  one  says  of  character,  when  one  says  novel 
one  says  of  incident,  and  the  terms  may  be  transposed 
at  will.  What  is  character  but  the  determination  of  inci- 
dent? What  is  incident  but  the  illustration  of  character? 
What  is  either  a  picture  or  a  novel  that  is  not  of  char- 
acter? What  else  do  we  seek  in  it  and  find  in  it?  It  is  an 
incident  for  a  woman  to  stand  up  with  her  hand  resting 
on  a  table  and  look  out  at  you  in  a  certain  way;  or  if  it 
be  not  an  incident  I  think  it  will  be  hard  to  say  what  it  is. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  an  expression  of  character.  If  you 
say  you  don't  see  it  (character  in  that — allons  done!), 
this  is  exactly  what  the  artist  who  has  reasons  of  his  own 
for  thinking  he  does  see  it  undertakes  to  show  you.  When 
a  young  man  makes  up  his  mind  that  he  has  not  faith 
enough  after  all  to  enter  the  church  as  he  intended,  that 
is  an  incident,  though  you  may  not  hurry  to  the  end  of 
the  chapter  to  see  whether  perhaps  he  doesn't  change 
once  more.  I  do  not  say  that  these  are  extraordinary  or 
startling  incidents.  I  do  not  pretend  to  estimate  the  de- 
gree of  interest  proceeding  from  them,  tor  this  will  de- 
pend upon  the  skill  of  the  painter.    It  sounds  almost 


2i 8  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

puerile  to  say  that  some  incidents  are  intrinsically  much 
more  important  than  others,  and  I  need  not  take  this 
precaution  after  having  professed  my  sympathy  for  the 
major  ones  in  remarking  that  the  only  classification  of 
the  novel  that  I  can  understand  is  into  that  which  has 
life  and  that  which  has  it  not. 

The  novel  and  the  romance,  the  novel  of  incident  and 
that  of  character  —  these  clumsy  separations  appear  to 
me  to  have  been  made  by  critics  and  readers  for  their 
own  convenience,  and  to  help  them  out  of  some  of  their 
occasional  queer  predicaments,  but  to  have  little  reality 
or  interest  for  the  producer,  from  whose  point  of  view  it 
is  of  course  that  we  are  attempting  to  consider  the  art  of 
fiction.  The  case  is  the  same  with  another  shadowy 
category  which  Mr.  Besant  apparently  is  disposed  to 
set  up —  that  of  the  "modern  English  novel";  unless 
indeed  it  be  that  in  this  matter  he  has  fallen  into  an  acci- 
dental confusion  of  standpoints.  It  is  not  quite  clear 
whether  he  intends  the  remarks  in  which  he  alludes  to 
it  to  be  didactic  or  historical.  It  is  as  difficult  to  suppose 
a  person  intending  to  write  a  modern  English  as  to  sup- 
pose him  writing  an  ancient  English  novel:  that  is  a  la- 
bel which  begs  the  question.  One  writes  the  novel,  one 
paints  the  picture,  of  one's  language  and  of  one's  time, 
and  calling  it  modern  English  will  not,  alas!  make  the 
difficult  task  any  easier.  No  more,  unfortunately,  will 
calling  this  or  that  work  of  one's  fellow-artist  a  romance 
—  unless  it  be,  of  course,  simply  for  the  pleasantness  of 
the  thing,  as  for  instance  when  Hawthorne  gave  this 
heading  to  his  story  of  Blithedale.  The  French,  who 
have  brought  the  theory  of  fiction  to  remarkable  com- 
pleteness, have  but  one  name  for  the  novel,  and  have 
not  attempted  smaller  things  in  it,  that  I  can  see,  for 


HENRY  JAMES  219 

that.  I  can  think  of  no  obligation  to  which  the  "ro- 
mancer" would  not  be  held  equally  with  the  novelist; 
the  standard  of  execution  is  equally  high  for  each.  Of 
course  it  is  of  execution  that  we  are  talking  —  that  be- 
ing the  only  point  of  a  novel  that  is  open  to  contention. 
This  is  perhaps  too  often  lost  sight  of,  only  to  produce 
interminable  confusions  and  cross-purposes.  We  must 
grant  the  artist  his  subject,  his  idea,  his  donnee:  our 
criticism  is  applied  only  to  what  he  makes  of  it.  Natu- 
rally I  do  not  mean  that  we  are  bound  to  like  it  or  find  it 
interesting:  in  case  we  do  not,  our  course  is  perfectly 
simple —  to  let  it  alone.  We  may  believe  that  of  a  cer- 
tain idea  even  the  most  sincere  novelist  can  make  noth- 
ing at  all,  and  the  event  may  perfectly  justify  our  belief; 
but  the  failure  will  have  been  a  failure  to  execute,  and 
it  is  in  the  execution  that  the  fatal  weakness  is  recorded. 
If  we  pretend  to  respect  the  artist  at  all,  we  must  allow 
him  his  freedom  of  choice,  in  the  face,  in  particular 
cases,  of  innumerable  presumptions  that  the  choice  will 
not  fructify.  Art  derives  a  considerable  part  of  its  bene- 
ficial exercise  from  flying  in  the  face  of  presumptions, 
and  some  of  the  most  interesting  experiments  of  which 
it  is  capable  are  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  common  things. 
Gustave  Flaubert  has  written  a  story  about  the  devo- 
tion of  a  servant-girl  to  a  parrot,  and  the  production, 
highly  finished  as  it  is,  cannot  on  the  whole  be  called  a 
success.  We  are  perfectly  free  to  find  it  flat,  but  I  think 
it  might  have  been  interesting;  and  I,  for  my  part,  am 
extremely  glad  he  should  have  written  it;  it  is  a  contri- 
bution to  our  knowledge  of  what  can  be  done  —  or  what 
cannot.  Ivan  Turgenieff  has  written  a  tale  about  a  deaf 
and  dumb  serf  and  a  lap-dog,  and  the  thing  is  touching, 
loving,  a  little  masterpiece.    He  struck  the  note  of  life 


220  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

where  Gustave  Flaubert  missed  it  —  he  flew  in  the  face 
of  a  presumption  and  achieved  a  victory. 

Nothing,  of  course,  will  ever  take  the  place  of  the  good 
old  fashion  of  "liking"  a  work  of  art  or  not  liking  it: 
the  most  improved  criticism  will  not  abolish  that  primi- 
tive, that  ultimate  test.  I  mention  this  to  guard  myself 
from  the  accusation  of  intimating  that  the  idea,  the  sub- 
ject, of  a  novel  or  a  picture,  does  not  matter.  It  matters, 
to  my  sense,  in  the  highest  degree,  and  if  I  might  put  up 
a  prayer  it  would  be  that  artists  should  select  none  but 
the  richest.  Some,  as  I  have  already  hastened  to  admit, 
are  much  more  remunerative  than  others,  and  it  would 
be  a  world  happily  arranged  in  which  persons  intending 
to  treat  them  should  be  exempt  from  confusions  and 
mistakes.  This  fortunate  condition  will  arrive  only,  I 
fear,  on  the  same  day  that  critics  become  purged  from 
error.  Meanwhile,  I  repeat,  we  do  not  judge  the  artist 
with  fairness  unless  we  say  to  him,  "Oh,  I  grant  you 
your  starting-point,  because  if  I  did  not  I  should  seem 
to  prescribe  to  you,  and  heaven  forbid  I  should  take 
that  responsibility.  If  I  pretend  to  tell  you  what  you 
must  not  take,  you  will  call  upon  me  to  tell  you  then 
what  you  must  take;  in  which  case  I  shall  be  prettily 
caught.  Moreover,  it  isn't  till  I  have  accepted  your  data 
that  I  can  begin  to  measure  you.  I  have  the  standard, 
the  pitch;  I  have  no  right  to  tamper  with  your  flute  and 
then  criticise  your  music.  Of  course  I  may  not  care  for 
your  idea  at  all;  I  may  think  it  silly,  or  stale,  or  unclean; 
in  which  case  I  wash  my  hands  of  you  altogether.  I 
may  content  myself  with  believing  that  you  will  not 
have  succeeded  in  being  interesting,  but  I  shall,  of 
course,  not  attempt  to  demonstrate  it,  and  you  will  be 
as  indifferent  to  me  as  I  am  to  you.    I  needn't  remind 


HENRY  JAMES  221 

you  that  there  are  all  sorts  of  tastes:  who  can  know  it 
better?  Some  people,  for  excellent  reasons,  don't  like  to 
read  about  carpenters;  others,  for  reasons  even  better, 
don't  like  to  read  about  courtesans.  Many  object  to 
Americans.  Others  (I  believe  they  are  mainly  editors 
and  publishers)  won't  look  at  Italians.  Some  readers 
don't  like  quiet  subjects;  others  don't  like  bustling  ones. 
Some  enjoy  a  complete  illusion,  others  the  consciousness 
of  large  concessions.  They  choose  their  novels  accord- 
ingly, and  if  they  don't  care  about  your  idea  they  won't, 
a  fortiori,  care  about  your  treatment." 
So  that  it  comes  back  very  quickly,  as  I  have  said,  to 
the  liking:  in  spite  of  M.  Zola,  who  reasons  less  power- 
fully than  he  represents,  and  who  will  not  reconcile  him- 
self to  this  absoluteness  of  taste,  thinking  that  there  are 
certain  things  that  people  ought  to  like,  and  that  they 
can  be  made  to  like.  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  imagine  any- 
thing (at  any  rate  in  this  matter  of  fiction)  that  people 
ought  to  like  or  to  dislike.  Selection  will  be  sure  to  take 
care  of  itself,  for  it  has  a  constant  motive  behind  it. 
That  motive  is  simply  experience.  As  people  feel  life, 
so  they  will  feel  the  art  that  is  most  closely  related  to  it. 
This  closeness  of  relation  is  what  we  should  never  forget 
in  talking  of  the  effort  of  the  novel.  Many  people  speak 
of  it  as  a  factitious,  artificial  form,  a  product  of  inge- 
nuity, the  business  of  which  is  to  alter  and  arrange  the 
things  that  surround  us,  to  translate  them  into  conven- 
tional, traditional  moulds.  This,  however,  is  a  view  of 
the  matter  which  carries  us  but  a  very  short  way,  con- 
demns the  art  to  an  eternal  repetition  of  a  few  famil- 
iar cliches,  cuts  short  its  development,  and  leads  us 
straight  up  to  a  dead  wall.  Catching  the  very  note  and 
trick,  the  strange  irregular  rhythm  of  life,  that  is  the  at- 


222  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

tempt  whose  strenuous  force  keeps  Fiction  upon  her 
feet.  In  proportion  as  in  what  she  offers  us  we  see  life 
without  rearrangement  do  we  feel  that  we  are  touching 
the  truth;  in  proportion  as  we  see  it  with  rearrangement 
do  we  feel  that  we  are  being  put  off  with  a  substitute, 
a  compromise  and  convention.  It  is  not  uncommon  to 
hear  an  extraordinary  assurance  of  remark  in  regard  to 
this  matter  of  rearranging,  which  is  often  spoken  of  as  if 
it  were  the  last  word  of  art.  Mr.  Besant  seems  to  me  in 
danger  of  tailing  into  the  great  error  with  his  rather  un- 
guarded talk  about  "selection."  Art  is  essentially  se- 
lection, but  it  is  a  selection  whose  main  care  is  to  be 
typical,  to  be  inclusive.  For  many  people  art  means 
rose-coloured  window-panes,  and  selection  means  pick- 
ing a  bouquet  tor  Mrs.  Grundy.  They  will  tell  you 
glibly  that  artistic  considerations  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  disagreeable,  with  the  ugly;  they  will  rattle  off 
shallow  commonplaces  about  the  province  of  art  and  the 
limits  of  art  till  you  are  moved  to  some  wonder  in  return 
as  to  the  province  and  the  limits  of  ignorance.  It  ap- 
pears to  me  that  no  one  can  ever  have  made  a  seriously 
artistic  attempt  without  becoming  conscious  of  an  im- 
mense increase  —  a  kind  of  revelation  —  of  freedom. 
One  perceives  in  that  case  —  by  the  light  of  a  heavenly 
ray  —  that  the  province  of  art  is  all  life,  all  feeling,  all 
observation,  all  vision.  As  Mr.  Besant  so  justly  inti- 
mates, it  is  all  experience.  That  is  a  sufficient  answer  to 
those  who  maintain  that  it  must  not  touch  the  sad 
things  of  life,  who  stick  into  its  divine  unconscious 
bosom  little  prohibitory  inscriptions  on  the  end  of  sticks, 
such  as  we  see  in  public  gardens  —  "It  is  forbidden  to 
walk  on  the  grass;  it  is  forbidden  to  touch  the  flowers; 
it  is  not  allowed  to  introduce  dogs  or  to  remain  after 


HENRY  JAMES  223 

dark;  it  is  requested  to  keep  to  the  right. "  The  young 
aspirant  in  the  line  of  fiction  whom  we  continue  to  imag- 
ine will  do  nothing  without  taste,  for  in  that  case  his 
freedom  would  be  of  little  use  to  him;  but  the  first  ad- 
vantage of  his  taste  will  be  to  reveal  to  him  the  absurd- 
ity of  the  little  sticks  and  tickets.  If  he  have  taste,  I 
must  add,  of  course  he  will  have  ingenuity,  and  my  dis- 
respectful reference  to  that  quality  just  now  was  not 
meant  to  imply  that  it  is  useless  in  fiction.  But  it  is  only 
a  secondary  aid;  the  first  is  a  capacity  for  receiving 
straight  impressions. 

Mr.  Besant  has  some  remarks  on  the  question  of  "the 
story"  which  I  shall  not  attempt  to  criticise,  though 
they  seem  to  me  to  contain  a  singular  ambiguity,  be- 
cause I  do  not  think  I  understand  them.  I  cannot  see 
what  is  meant  by  talking  as  if  there  were  a  part  of  a 
novel  which  is  the  story  and  part  of  it  which  for  mystical 
reasons  is  not  —  unless  indeed  the  distinction  be  made 
in  a  sense  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  any  one 
should  attempt  to  convey  anything.  "The  story,"  if  it 
represents  anything,  represents  the  subject,  the  idea, 
the  donnee  of  the  novel;  and  there  is  surely  no  "school" 
—  Mr.  Besant  speaks  of  a  school  —  which  urges  that 
a  novel  should  be  all  treatment  and  no  subject.  There 
must  assuredly  be  something  to  treat;  every  school  is 
intimately  conscious  of  that.  This  sense  of  the  story 
being  the  idea,  the  starting-point,  of  the  novel,  is  the 
only  one  that  I  see  in  which  it  can  be  spoken  of  as  some- 
thing different  from  its  organic  whole;  and  since  in  pro- 
portion as  the  work  is  successful  the  idea  permeates  and 
penetrates  it,  informs  and  animates  it,  so  that  every 
word  and  every  punctuation-point  contribute  directly 
to  the  expression,  in  that  proportion  do  we  lose  our 


224  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

sense  of  the  story  being  a  blade  which  may  be  drawn 
more  or  less  out  of  its  sheath.  The  story  and  the  novel, 
the  idea  and  the  form,  are  the  needle  and  thread,  and  I 
never  heard  of  a  guild  of  tailors  who  recommended  the 
use  of  the  thread  without  the  needle,  or  the  needle  with- 
out the  thread.  Mr.  Besant  is  not  the  only  critic  who 
may  be  observed  to  have  spoken  as  if  there  were  certain 
things  in  life  which  constitute  stories,  and  certain  others 
which  do  not.  I  find  the  same  odd  implication  in  an  en- 
tertaining article  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  devoted,  as  it 
happens,  to  Mr.  Besant's  lecture.  "The  story  is  the 
thing!"  says  this  graceful  writer,  as  if  with  a  tone  of  op- 
position to  some  other  idea.  I  should  think  it  was,  as 
every  painter  who,  as  the  time  tor  "sending  in"  his  pic- 
ture looms  in  the  distance,  finds  himself  still  in  quest  of 
a  subject  —  as  every  belated  artist  not  fixed  about  his 
theme  will  heartily  agree.  There  are  some  subjects 
which  speak  to  us  and  others  which  do  not,  but  he  would 
be  a  clever  man  who  should  undertake  to  give  a  rule  — 
an  index  expurgatorius  —  by  which  the  story  and  the 
no-story  should  be  known  apart.  It  is  impossible  (to  me 
at  least)  to  imagine  any  such  rule  which  shall  not  be 
altogether  arbitrary.  The  writer  in  the  Pall  Mall  op- 
poses the  delightful  (as  I  suppose)  novel  of  Margot  la 
Balafree  to  certain  tales  in  which  "Bostonian  nymphs" 
appear  to  have  "rejected  English  dukes  for  psychologi- 
cal reasons."  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the  romance 
just  designated,  and  can  scarcely  forgive  the  Pall  Mall 
critic  for  not  mentioning  the  name  of  the  author,  but  the 
title  appears  to  refer  to  a  lady  who  may  have  received  a 
scar  in  some  heroic  adventure.  I  am  inconsolable  at  not 
being  acquainted  with  this  episode,  but  am  utterly  at  a 
loss  to  see  why  it  is  a  story  when  the  rejection  (or  accept- 


HENRY  JAMES  225 

ance)  of  a  duke  is  not,  and  why  a  reason,  psychological 
or  other,  is  not  a  subject  when  a  cicatrix  is.  They  are  all 
particles  of  the  multitudinous  life  with  which  the  novel 
deals,  and  surely  no  dogma  which  pretends  to  make  it 
lawful  to  touch  the  one  and  unlawful  to  touch  the  other 
will  stand  for  a  moment  on  its  feet.  It  is  the  special  pic- 
ture that  must  stand  or  fall,  according  as  it  seem  to  pos- 
sess truth  or  to  lack  it.  Mr.  Besant  does  not,  to  my 
sense,  light  up  the  subject  by  intimating  that  a  story 
must,  under  penalty  of  not  being  a  story,  consist  of  "  ad- 
ventures." Why  of  adventures  more  than  of  green 
spectacles?  He  mentions  a  category  of  impossible 
things,  and  among  them  he  places  "fiction  without  ad- 
venture." Why  without  adventure,  more  than  without 
matrimony,  or  celibacy,  or  parturition,  or  cholera,  or 
hydropathy,  or  Jansenism?  This  seems  to  me  to  bring 
the  novel  back  to  the  hapless  little  role  of  being  an  arti- 
ficial, ingenious  thing  —  bring  it  down  from  its  large, 
free  character  of  an  immense  and  exquisite  correspond- 
ence with  life.  And  what  is  adventure,  when  it  comes  to 
that,  and  by  what  sign  is  the  listening  pupil  to  recognize 
it?  It  is  an  adventure  —  an  immense  one  —  for  me  to 
write  this  little  article;  and  for  a  Bostonian  nymph  to 
reject  an  English  duke  is  an  adventure  only  less  stirring, 
I  should  say,  than  for  an  English  duke  to  be  rejected  by 
a  Bostonian  nymph.  I  see  dramas  within  dramas  in 
that,  and  innumerable  points  of  view.  A  psychological 
reason  is,  to  my  imagination,  an  object  adorably  pic- 
torial; to  catch  the  tint  of  its  complexion  —  I  teel  as  if 
that  idea  might  inspire  one  to  Titianesque  efforts.  There 
are  few  things  more  exciting  to  me,  in  short,  than  a  psy- 
chological reason,  and  yet,  I  protest,  the  novel  seems  to 
me  the  most  magnificent  form  of  art.    I  have  just  been 


226  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

reading,  at  the  same  time,  the  delightful  story  of  Treas- 
ure Island,  by  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and,  in  a 
manner  less  consecutive,  the  last  tale  from  M.  Edmond 
de  Goncourt,  which  is  entitled  Cherie.  One  of  these 
works  treats  of  murders,  mysteries,  islands  of  dreadful 
renown,  hairbreadth  escapes,  miraculous  coincidences 
and  buried  doubloons.  The  other  treats  of  a  little 
French  girl  who  lived  in  a  fine  house  in  Paris,  and  died 
of  wounded  sensibility  because  no  one  would  marry  her. 
I  call  Treasure  Island  delightful,  because  it  appears  to 
me  to  have  succeeded  wonderfully  in  what  it  attempts; 
and  I  venture  to  bestow  no  epithet  upon  Cherie,  which 
strikes  me  as  having  failed  deplorably  in  what  it  at- 
tempts —  that  is  in  tracing  the  development  of  the 
moral  consciousness  of  a  child.  But  one  of  these  pro- 
ductions strikes  me  as  exactly  as  much  of  a  novel  as  the 
other,  and  as  having  a  "story"  quite  as  much.  The 
moral  consciousness  of  a  child  is  as  much  a  part  of  life  as 
the  islands  of  the  Spanish  Main,  and  the  one  sort  of  geog- 
raphy seems  tome  to  have  those  "surprises"  of  which 
Mr.  Besant  speaks  quite  as  much  as  the  other.  For  my- 
self (since  it  comes  back  in  the  last  resort,  as  I  say,  to 
the  preference  of  the  individual),  the  picture  of  the 
child's  experience  has  the  advantage  that  I  can  at  suc- 
cessive steps  (an  immense  luxury,  near  to  the  "sensual 
pleasure"  of  which  Mr.  Besant's  critic  in  the  Pall  Mall 
speaks)  say  Yes  or  No,  as  it  may  be,  to  what  the  artist 
puts  before  me.  I  have  seen  a  child  in  fact,  but  I  have 
been  on  a  quest  for  a  buried  treasure  only  in  supposition, 
and  it  is  a  simple  accident  that  with  M.  de  Goncourt  I 
should  have  for  the  most  part  to  say  No.  With  George 
Eliot,  when  she  painted  that  country  with  a  far  other 
intelligence,  I  always  said  Yes. 


HENRY  JAMES  227 

The  most  interesting  part  of  Mr.  Besant's  lecture  is 
unfortunately  the  briefest  passage  —  his  very  cursory 
allusion  to  the  "conscious  moral  purpose"  of  the  novel. 
Here  again  it  is  not  very  clear  whether  he  be  recording  a 
fact  or  laying  down  a  principle;  it  is  a  great  pity  that  in 
the  latter  case  he  should  not  have  developed  his  idea. 
This  branch  of  the  subject  is  of  immense  importance,  and 
Mr.  Besant's  few  words  point  to  considerations  of  the 
widest  reach,  not  to  be  lightly  disposed  of.   He  will  have 
treated  the  art  of  fiction  but  superficially  who  is  not  pre- 
pared to  go  every  inch  of  the  way  that  these  considera- 
tions will  carry  him.    It  is  for  this  reason  that  at  the 
beginning  of  these  remarks  I  was  careful  to  notifiy  the 
reader  that  my  reflections  on  so  large  a  theme  have  no 
pretension  to  be  exhaustive.    Like  Mr.  Besant,  I  have 
left  the  question  of  the  morality  of  the  novel  till  the  last, 
and  at  the  last  I  find  I  have  used  up  my  space.    It  is  a 
question  surrounded  with   difficulties,   as  witness   the 
very  first  that  meets  us,  in  the  form  of  a  definite  ques- 
tion, on  the  threshold.   Vagueness,  in  such  a  discussion, 
is  fatal,  and  what  is  the  meaning  of  your  morality  and 
your  conscious  moral  purpose?  Will  you  not  define  your 
terms  and  explain  how  (a  novel  being  a  picture)  a  pic- 
ture can  be  either  moral  or  immoral?   You  wish  to  paint 
a  moral  picture  or  carve  a  moral  statue:  will  you  not  tell 
us  how  you  would  set  about  it?   We  are  discussing  the 
Art  of  Fiction;  questions  of  art  are  questions  (in   the 
widest  sense)  of  execution;  questions  of  morality  are 
quite  another  affair,  and  will  you  not  let  us  see  how  it  is 
that  you  find  it  so  easy  to  mix  them  up?   These  things 
are  so  clear  to  Mr.  Besant  that  he  has  deduced  from 
them  a  law  which  he  sees  embodied  in  English  Fiction, 
and  which  is  "  a  truly  admirable  thing  and  a  great  cause 


228  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

for  congratulation."  It  is  a  great  cause  for  congratu- 
lation indeed  when  such  thorny  problems  become  as 
smooth  as  silk.  I  may  add  that  in  so  far  as  Mr.  Besant 
perceives  that  in  point  of  fact  English  Fiction  has  ad- 
dressed itself  preponderantly  to  these  delicate  questions 
he  will  appear  to  many  people  to  have  made  a  vain  dis- 
covery. They  will  have  been  positively  struck,  on  the 
contrary,  with  the  moral  timidity  of  the  usual  English 
novelist;  with  his  (or  with  her)  aversion  to  face  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  on  every  side  the  treatment  of  reality 
bristles.  He  is  apt  to  be  extremely  shy  (whereas  the  pic- 
ture that  Mr.  Besant  draws  is  a  picture  of  boldness), 
and  the  sign  of  his  work,  for  the  most  part,  is  a  cautious 
silence  on  certain  subjects.  In  the  English  novel  (by 
which  of  course  I  mean  the  American  as  well),  more  than 
in  any  other,  there  is  a  traditional  difference  between 
that  which  people  know  and  that  which  they  agree  to 
admit  that  they  know,  that  which  they  see  and  that 
which  they  speak  of,  that  which  they  feel  to  be  a  part  of 
life  and  that  which  they  allow  to  enter  into  literature. 
There  is  the  great  difference,  in  short,  between  what 
they  talk  of  in  conversation  and  what  they  talk  of  in 
print.  The  essence  of  moral  energy  is  to  survey  the 
whole  field,  and  I  should  directly  reverse  Mr.  Besant's 
remark  and  say  not  that  the  English  novel  has  a  purpose, 
but  that  it  has  a  diffidence.  To  what  degree  a  purpose 
in  a  work  of  art  is  a  source  of  corruption  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  inquire;  the  one  that  seems  to  me  least  danger- 
ous is  the  purpose  of  making  a  perfect  work.  As  for  our 
novel,  I  may  say  lastly  on  this  score  that  as  we  find  it  in 
England  to-day  it  strikes  me  as  addressed  in  a  large  de- 
gree to  "young  people,"  and  that  this  in  itself  consti- 
tutes a  presumption  that  it  will  be  rather  shy.    There 


HENRY  JAMES  229 

are  certain  things  which  it  is  generally  agreed  not  to 
discuss,  not  even  to  mention,  before  young  people.  That 
is  very  well,  but  the  absence  of  discussion  is  not  a  symp- 
tom of  the  moral  passion.  The  purpose  of  the  English 
novel — "a  truly  admirable  thing,  and  a  great  cause  for 
congratulation"  —  strikes  me  therefore  as  rather  nega- 
tive. 

There  is  one  point  at  which  the  moral  sense  and  the 
artistic  sense  lie  very  near  together;  that  is  in  the  light  of 
the  very  obvious  truth  that  the  deepest  quality  of  a  work 
of  art  will  always  be  the  quality  of  the  mind  of  the  pro- 
ducer. In  proportion  as  that  intelligence  is  fine  will  the 
novel,  the  picture,  the  statue  partake  of  the  substance 
of  beauty  and  truth.  To  be  constituted  of  such  elements 
is,  to  my  vision,  to  have  purpose  enough.  No  good  novel 
will  ever  proceed  from  a  superficial  mind;  that  seems  to 
me  an  axiom  which,  for  the  artist  in  fiction,  will  cover  all 
needful  moral  ground:  if  the  youthful  aspirant  take  it  to 
heart  it  will  illuminate  for  him  many  of  the  mysteries  of 
"purpose."  There  are  many  other  useful  things  that 
might  be  said  to  him,  but  I  have  come  to  the  end  of  my 
article,  and  can  only  touch  them  as  I  pass.  The  critic 
in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  whom  I  have  already  quoted, 
draws  attention  to  the  danger,  in  speaking  of  the  art  of 
fiction,  of  generalizing.  The  danger  that  he  has  in  mind 
is  rather,  I  imagine,  that  of  particularizing,  for  there  are 
some  comprehensive  remarks  which,  in  addition  to  those 
embodied  in  Mr.  Besant's  suggestive  lecture,  might 
without  fear  of  misleading  him  be  addressed  to  the  in- 
genuous student.  I  should  remind  him  first  of  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  form  that  is  open  to  him,  which  offers  to 
sight  so  few  restrictions  and  such  innumerable  oppor- 
tunities.   The  other  arts,  in  comparison,  appear  con- 


230  THE  ART  OF  FICTION 

fined  and  hampered;  the  various  conditions  under  which 
they  are  exercised  are  so  rigid  and  definite.  But  the  only 
condition  that  I  can  think  of  attaching  to  the  composi- 
tion of  the  novel  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  it  be 
sincere.  This  freedom  is  a  splendid  privilege,  and  the 
first  lesson  of  the  young  novelist  is  to  learn  to  be  worthy 
of  it.  "Enjoy  it  as  it  deserves,"  I  should  say  to  him; 
"take  possession  of  it,  explore  it  to  its  utmost  extent, 
publish  it,  rejoice  in  it.  All  life  belongs  to  you,  and  do 
not  listen  either  to  those  who  would  shut  you  up  into 
corners  of  it  and  tell  you  that  it  is  only  here  and  there 
that  art  inhabits,  or  to  those  who  would  persuade  you 
that  this  heavenly  messenger  wings  her  way  outside  of 
life  altogether,  breathing  a  superfine  air,  and  turning 
away  her  head  from  the  truth  of  things.  There  is  no 
impression  of  life,  no  manner  of  seeing  it  and  feeling  it, 
to  which  the  plan  of  the  novelist  may  not  offer  a  place; 
you  have  only  to  remember  that  talents  so  dissimilar  as 
those  of  Alexandre  Dumas  and  Jane  Austen,  Charles 
Dickens  and  Gustave  Flaubert  have  worked  in  this  field 
with  equal  glory.  Do  not  think  too  much  about  opti- 
mism and  pessimism;  try  and  catch  the  colour  of  life  it- 
self. In  France  to-day  we  see  a  prodigious  effort  (that 
of  Emile  Zola,  to  whose  solid  and  serious  work  no  ex- 
plorer of  the  capacity  of  the  novel  can  allude  without 
respect),  we  see  an  extraordinary  effort  vitiated  by  a 
spirit  of  pessimism  on  a  narrow  basis.  M.  Zola  is  mag- 
nificent, but  he  strikes  an  English  reader  as  ignorant; 
he  has  an  air  of  working  in  the  dark;  if  he  had  as  much 
light  as  energy,  his  results  would  be  of  the  highest  value. 
As  for  the  aberrations  of  a  shallow  optimism,  the  ground 
(of  English  fiction  especially)  is  strewn  with  their  britde 
particles  as  with  broken  glass.     If  you  must  indulge 


HENRY  JAMES  231 

in  conclusions,  let  them  have  the  taste  of  a  wide 
knowledge.  Remember  that  your  first  duty  is  to  be  as 
complete  as  possible  —  to  make  as  perfect  a  work.  Be 
generous  and  delicate  and  pursue  the  prize. " 


A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE  i 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

i 850-1 894 

This  essay  is  self-explanatory  when  read  in  connection  with 
Henry  James's  "The  Art  of  Fiction." 

WE  have  recently 2  enjoyed  a  quite  peculiar  pleas- 
ure; hearing,  in  some  detail,  the  opinions,  about 
the  art  they  practise,  of  Mr.  Walter  Besant  and  Mr. 
Henry  James;  two  men  certainly  of  very  different  cal- 
ibre: Mr.  James  so  precise  of  outline,  so  cunning  of 
fence,  so  scrupulous  of  finish,  and  Mr.  Besant  so  genial, 
so  friendly,  with  so  persuasive  and  humourous  a  vein  of 
whim:  Mr.  James  the  very  type  of  the  deliberate  artist, 
Mr.  Besant  the  impersonation  of  good-nature.  That 
such  doctors  should  differ  will  excite  no  great  surprise; 
but  one  point  in  which  they  seem  to  agree  fills  me,  I 
confess,  with  wonder.  For  they  are  both  content  to  talk 
about  the  "art  of  fiction";  and  Mr.  Besant,  waxing  ex- 
ceedingly bold,  goes  on  to  oppose  this  so-called  "  art  of 
fiction  "  to  the  "  art  of  poetry. "  By  the  art  of  poetry  he 
can  mean  nothing  but  the  art  of  verse,  an  art  of  handi- 
craft, and  only  comparable  with  the  art  of  prose.  For 
that  heat  and  height  of  sane  emotion  which  we  agree  to 
call  by  the  name  of  poetry,  is  but  a  libertine  and  vagrant 
quality;  present,  at  times,  in  any  art,  more  often  ab- 
sent from  them  all;  too  seldom  present  in  the  prose 
novel,  too  frequently  absent  from  the  ode  and  epic. 
Fiction  is  in  the  same  case;  it  is  no  substantive  art,  but 

1  Copyright   by   Chatto   and   Windus,   London,   England.     Re- 
printed by  permission. 

2  1884. 

233 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        233 

an  element  which  enters  largely  into  all  the  arts  but 
architecture.  Homer,  Wordsworth,  Phidias,  Hogarth, 
and  Salvini,  all  deal  in  fiction;  and  yet  I  do  not  suppose 
that  either  Hogarth  or  Salvini,  to  mention  but  these 
two,  entered  in  any  degree  into  the  scope  of  Mr.  Be- 
sant's  interesting  lecture  or  Mr.  James's  charming  es- 
say. The  art  of  fiction,  then,  regarded  as  a  definition,  is 
both  too  ample  and  too  scanty.  Let  me  suggest  another; 
let  me  suggest  that  what  both  Mr.  James  and  Mr.  Be- 
sant  had  in  view  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  art 
of  narrative. 

But  Mr.  Besant  is  anxious  to  speak  solely  of  "the 
modern  English  novel,"  the  stay  and  breadwinner  of 
Mr.  Mudie;  and  in  the  author  of  the  most  pleasing  novel 
on  that  roll,  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  the  desire 
is  natural  enough.  I  can  conceive,  then,  that  he  would 
hasten  to  propose  two  additions,  and  read  thus:  the  art 
of fictitious  narrative  in  prose. 

Now  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  modern  English 
novel  is  not  to  be  denied;  materially,  with  its  three  vol- 
umes, leaded  type,  and  gilded  lettering,  it  is  easily  dis- 
tinguishable from  other  forms  of  literature;  but  to  talk 
at  all  fruitfully  of  any  branch  of  art,  it  is  needful  to  build 
our  definitions  on  some  more  fundamental  ground  than 
binding.  Why,  then,  are  we  to  add  "in  prose"?  The 
Odyssey  appears  to  me  the  best  of  romances;  The  Lady  of 
the  Lake  to  stand  high  in  the  second  order;  and  Chaucer's 
tales  and  prologues  to  contain  more  of  the  matter  and 
art  of  the  modern  English  novel  than  the  whole  treasury 
of  Mr.  Mudie.  Whether  a  narrative  be  written  in  blank 
verse  or  the  Spenserian  stanza,  in  the  long  period  of 
Gibbon  or  the  chipped  phrase  of  Charles  Reade,  the 
principles  of  the  art  of  narrative  must  be  equally  ob- 


234      A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

served.  The  choice  of  a  noble  and  swelling  style  in 
prose  affects  the  problem  of  narration  in  the  same  way, 
if  not  to  the  same  degree,  as  the  choice  of  measured 
verse;  for  both  imply  a  closer  synthesis  of  events,  a 
higher  key  of  dialogue,  and  a  more  picked  and  stately 
strain  of  words.  If  you  are  to  refuse  Don  Juan,  it  is  hard 
to  see  why  you  should  include  Zanoni  or  (to  bracket 
works  of  very  different  value)  The  Scarlet  Letter;  and  by 
what  discrimination  are  you  to  open  your  doors  to  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  and  close  them  on  The  Faery  Queen? 
To  bring  things  closer  home,  I  will  here  propound  to 
Mr.  Besant  a  conundrum.  A  narrative  called  Paradise 
Lost  was  written  in  English  verse  by  one  John  Milton; 
what  was  it  then?  It  was  next  translated  by  Chateau- 
briand into  French  prose;  and  what  was  it  then?  Lastly, 
the  French  translation  was,  by  some  inspired  compatriot 
of  George  Gilfillan  (and  of  mine)  turned  bodily  into  an 
English  novel;  and,  in  the  name  of  clearness,  what  was 
it  then? 

But,  once  more,  why  should  we  add  "fictitious"? 
The  reason  why  is  obvious.  The  reason  why  not,  if 
something  more  recondite,  does  not  want  for  weight. 
The  art  of  narrative,  in  tact,  is  the  same,  whether  it  is 
applied  to  the  selection  and  illustration  of  a  real  series 
of  events  or  of  an  imaginary  series.  Boswell's  Life  of 
Johnson  (a  work  of  cunning  and  inimitable  art)  owes  its 
success  to  the  same  technical  manoeuvres  as  (let  us  say) 
Tom  Jones:  the  clear  conception  of  certain  characters 
of  man,  the  choice  and  presentation  of  certain  incidents 
out  of  a  great  number  that  offered,  and  the  invention 
(yes,  invention)  and  preservation  of  a  certain  key  in  dia- 
logue. In  which  these  things  are  done  with  the  more  art 
—  in  which  with  the  greater  air  of  nature  —  readers  will 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        235 

differently  judge.  Boswell's  is,  indeed,  a  very  special 
case,  and  almost  a  generic;  but  it  is  not  only  in  Boswell, 
it  is  in  every  biography  with  any  salt  of  life,  it  is  in  every 
history  where  events  and  men,  rather  than  ideas,  are 
presented —  in  Tacitus,  in  Carlyle,  in  Michelet,  in  Ma- 
caulay  —  that  the  novelist  will  find  many  of  his  own 
methods  most  conspicuously  and  adroitly  handled.  He 
will  find  besides  that  he,  who  is  free  —  who  has  the  right 
to  invent  or  steal  a  missing  incident,  who  has  the  right, 
more  precious  still,  of  wholesale  omission  —  is  fre- 
quently defeated,  and,  with  all  his  advantages,  leaves  a 
less  strong  impression  of  reality  and  passion.  Mr.  James 
utters  his  mind  with  a  becoming  fervour  on  the  sanctity 
of  truth  to  the  novelist;  on  a  more  careful  examination 
truth  will  seem  a  word  of  very  debatable  propriety,  not 
only  tor  the  labours  of  the  novelist,  but  for  those  of  the 
historian.  No  art  —  to  use  the  daring  phrase  of  Mr. 
James —  can  successfully  "compete  with  life";  and  the 
art  that  seeks  to  do  so  is  condemned  to  perish  montibus 
amis.  Life  goes  before  us,  infinite  in  complication;  at- 
tended by  the  most  various  and  surprising  meteors;  ap- 
pealing at  once  to  the  eye,  to  the  ear,  to  the  mind  —  the 
seat  of  wonder,  to  the  touch  —  so  thrillingly  delicate, 
and  to  the  belly  —  so  imperious  when  starved.  It  com- 
bines and  employs  in  its  manifestation  the  method  and 
material,  not  of  one  art  only,  but  of  all  the  arts.  Music 
is  but  an  arbitrary  trifling  with  a  few  of  life's  majestic 
chords;  painting  is  but  a  shadow  of  its  pageantry  of  light 
and  colour;  literature  does  but  drily  indicate  that  wealth 
of  incident,  of  moral  obligation,  of  virtue,  vice,  action, 
rapture,  and  agony,  with  which  it  teems.  To  "compete 
with  life,"  whose  sun  we  cannot  look  upon,  whose  pas- 
sions and  diseases  waste  and  slay  us  —  to  compete  with 


236       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

the  flavour  of  wine,  the  beauty  of  the  dawn,  the  scorch- 
ing of  fire,  the  bitterness  of  death  and  separation  —  here 
is,  indeed,  a  projected  escalade  of  heaven;  here  are,  in- 
deed, labours  for  a  Hercules  in  a  dress  coat,  armed  with 
a  pen  and  a  dictionary  to  depict  the  passions,  armed 
with  a  tube  of  superior  flake- white  to  paint  the  portrait 
of  the  insufferable  sun.  No  art  is  true  in  this  sense:  none 
can  "compete  with  life":  not  even  history,  built  indeed 
of  indisputable  facts,  but  these  facts  robbed  of  their  vi- 
vacity and  sting;  so  that  even  when  we  read  of  the  sack 
of  a  city  or  the  tall  of  an  empire,  we  are  surprised,  and 
justly  commend  the  author's  talent,  if  our  pulse  be 
quickened.  And  mark,  for  a  last  differentia,  that  this 
quickening  of  the  pulse  is,  in  almost  every  case,  purely 
agreeable;  that  these  phantom  reproductions  of  expe- 
rience, even  at  their  most  acute,  convey  decided  pleasure; 
while  experience  itself,  in  the  cockpit  of  life,  can  torture 
and  slay. 

What,  then,  is  the  object,  what  the  method,  of  an  art, 
and  what  the  source  of  its  power?  The  whole  secret  is 
that  no  art  does  "compete  with  life."  Man's  one 
method,  whether  he  reasons  or  creates,  is  to  half-shut 
his  eyes  against  the  dazzle  and  confusion  of  reality.  The 
arts,  like  arithmetic  and  geometry,  turn  away  their  eyes 
from  the  gross,  coloured,  and  mobile  nature  at  our  feet, 
and  regard  instead  a  certain  figmentary  abstraction. 
Geometry  will  tell  us  of  a  circle,  a  thing  never  seen  in 
nature;  asked  about  a  green  circle  or  an  iron  circle,  it 
lays  its  hand  upon  its  mouth.  So  with  the  arts.  Paint- 
ing, ruefully  comparing  sunshine  and  flake-white,  gives 
up  truth  of  colour,  as  it  had  already  given  up  relief  and 
movement;  and  instead  of  vying  with  nature,  arranges 
a  scheme  of  harmonious  tints.    Literature,  above  all  in 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        237 

its  most  typical  mood,  the  mood  of  narrative,  similarly 
flees  the  direct  challenge  and  pursues  instead  an  inde- 
pendent and  creative  aim.  So  far  as  it  imitates  at  all, 
it  imitates  not  life  but  speech:  not  the  facts  of  human 
destiny,  but  the  emphasis  and  the  suppressions  with 
which  the  human  actor  tells  of  them.  The  real  art  that 
dealt  with  life  directly  was  that  of  the  first  men  who 
told  their  stories  round  the  savage  camp-fire.  Our  art 
is  occupied,  and  bound  to  be  occupied,  not  so  much  in 
making  stories  true  as  in  making  them  typical;  not  so 
much  in  capturing  the  lineaments  of  each  fact,  as  in 
marshalling  all  of  them  towards  a  common  end.  For  the 
welter  of  impressions,  all  forcible  but  all  discreet,  which 
life  presents,  it  substitutes  a  certain  artificial  series  of  im- 
pressions, all  indeed  most  feebly  represented,  but  all  aim- 
ing at  the  same  effect,  all  eloquent  of  the  same  idea,  all 
chiming  together  like  consonant  notes  in  music  or  like 
the  graduated  tints  in  a  good  picture.  From  all  its  chap- 
ters, from  all  its  pages,  from  all  its  sentences,  the  well- 
written  novel  echoes  and  re-echoes  its  one  creative  and 
controlling  thought;  to  this  must  every  incident  and 
character  contribute;  the  style  must  have  been  pitched 
in  unison  with  this;  and  if  there  is  anywhere  a  word  that 
looks  another  way,  the  book  would  be  stronger,  clearer, 
and  (I  had  almost  said)  fuller  without  it.  Life  is  mon- 
strous, infinite,  illogical,  abrupt,  and  poignant;  a  work 
of  art,  in  comparison,  is  neat,  finite,  self-contained,  ra- 
tional, flowing,  and  emasculate.  Life  imposes  by  brute 
energy,  like  inarticulate  thunder;  art  catches  the  ear, 
among  the  far  louder  noises  of  experience,  like  an  air 
artificially  made  by  a  discreet  musician.  A  proposition 
of  geometry  does  not  compete  with  life;  and  a  proposi- 
tion of  geometry  is  a  fair  and  luminous  parallel  for  a 


238       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

work  of  art.  Both  are  reasonable,  both  untrue  to  the 
crude  fact;  both  inhere  in  nature,  neither  represents  it. 
The  novel,  which  is  a  work  of  art,  exists,  not  by  its  re- 
semblances to  life,  which  are  forced  and  material,  as  a 
shoe  must  still  consist  of  leather,  but  by  its  immeasur- 
able difference  from  life,  which  is  designed  and  signifi- 
cant, and  is  both  the  method  and  the  meaning  of  the 
work. 

The  life  of  man  is  not  the  subject  of  novels,  but  the 
inexhaustible  magazine  from  which  subjects  are  to  be 
selected;  the  name  of  these  is  legion;  and  with  each  new 
subject — tor  here  again  I  must  differ  by  the  whole 
width  of  heaven  from  Mr.  James  —  the  true  artist  will 
vary  his  method  and  change  the  point  of  attack.  That 
which  was  in  one  case  an  excellence,  will  become  a  de- 
fect in  another;  what  was  the  making  of  one  book,  will 
in  the  next  be  impertinent  or  dull.  First  each  novel,  and 
then  each  class  of  novels,  exists  by  and  for  itself.  I  will 
take,  tor  instance,  three  main  classes,  which  are  fairly 
distinct:  first,  the  novel  of  adventure,  which  appeals  to 
certain  almost  sensual  and  quite  illogical  tendencies  in 
man;  second,  the  novel  of  character,  which  appeals  to 
our  intellectual  appreciation  of  man's  foibles  and  min- 
gled and  inconstant  motives;  and  third,  the  dramatic 
novel,  which  deals  with  the  same  stuff  as  the  serious 
theatre,  and  appeals  to  our  emotional  nature  and  moral 
judgment. 

And  first  for  the  novel  of  adventure.  Mr.  James  re- 
fers, with  singular  generosity  of  praise,  to  a  little  book 
about  a  quest  tor  hidden  treasure;  but  he  lets  fall,  by 
the  way,  some  rather  startling  words.  In  this  book  he 
misses  what  he  calls  the  "immense  luxury  "  of  being  able 
to  quarrel  with  his  author.   The  luxury,  to  most  of  us, 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        239 

is  to  lay  by  our  judgment,  to  be  submerged  by  the  tale 
as  by  a  billow,  and  only  to  awake,  and  begin  to  distin- 
guish and  find  fault,  when  the  piece  is  over  and  the  vol- 
ume laid  aside.  Still  more  remarkable  is  Mr.  James's 
reason.  He  cannot  criticise  the  author,  as  he  goes,  "be- 
cause," says  he,  comparing  it  with  another  work,  "/ 
have  been  a  child,  but  I  have  never  been  on  a  quest  for  buried 
treasure. "  Here  is,  indeed,  a  wilful  paradox;  for  if  he 
has  never  been  on  a  quest  for  buried  treasure,  it  can  be 
demonstrated  that  he  has  never  been  a  child.  There 
never  was  a  child  (unless  Master  James)  but  has  hunted 
gold,  and  been  a  pirate,  and  a  military  commander,  and 
a  bandit  of  the  mountains;  but  has  fought,  and  suffered 
shipwreck  and  prison,  and  imbrued  its  little  hands  in 
gore,  and  gallantly  retrieved  the  lost  battle,  and  tri- 
umphantly protected  innocence  and  beauty.  Elsewhere 
in  his  essay  Mr.  James  has  protested  with  excellent  rea- 
son against  too  narrow  a  conception  of  experience;  for 
the  born  artist,  he  contends,  the  "faintest  hints  of 
life"  are  converted  into  revelations;  and  it  will  be  found 
true,  I  believe,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  that  the  artist 
writes  with  more  gusto  and  effect  of  those  things  which 
he  has  only  wished  to  do,  than  of  those  which  he  has 
done.  Desire  is  a  wonderful  telescope,  and  Pisgah  the 
best  observatory.  Now,  while  it  is  true  that  neither  Mr. 
James  nor  the  author  of  the  work  in  question  has  ever, 
in  the  fleshly  sense,  gone  questing  after  gold,  it  is  prob- 
able that  both  have  ardently  desired  and  fondly  imag- 
ined the  details  of  such  a  life  in  youthful  day-dreams; 
and  the  author,  counting  upon  that,  and  well  aware 
(cunning  and  low-minded  man!)  that  this  class  of  in- 
terest, having  been  frequently  treated,  finds  a  readily 
accessible  and  beaten  road  to  the  sympathies  of  the 


24o       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

reader,  addressed  himself  throughout  to  the  building  up 
and  circumstantiation  of  this  boyish  dream.  Character 
to  the  boy  is  a  sealed  book;  for  him,  a  pirate  is  a  beard, 
a  pair  of  wide  trousers,  and  a  liberal  complement  of  pis- 
tols. The  author,  for  the  sake  of  circumstantiation  and 
because  he  was  himself  more  or  less  grown  up,  admitted 
character,  within  certain  limits,  into  his  design;  but  only 
within  certain  limits.  Had  the  same  puppets  figured  in  a 
scheme  of  another  sort,  they  had  been  drawn  to  very 
different  purpose;  for  in  this  elementary  novel  of  adven- 
ture, the  characters  need  to  be  presented  with  but  one 
class  of  qualities  —  the  warlike  and  formidable.  So  as 
they  appear  insidious  in  deceit  and  fatal  in  the  combat, 
they  have  served  their  end.  Danger  is  the  matter  with 
which  this  class  of  novel  deals;  tear,  the  passion  with 
which  it  idly  trifles;  and  the  characters  are  portrayed 
only  so  far  as  they  realise  the  sense  of  danger  and  pro- 
voke the  sympathy  of  fear.  To  add  more  traits,  to  be 
too  clever,  to  start  the  hare  of  moral  or  intellectual  in- 
terest while  we  are  running  the  fox  of  material  interest, 
is  not  to  enrich  but  to  stultify  your  tale.  The  stupid 
reader  will  only  be  offended,  and  the  clever  reader  lose 
the  scent. 

The  novel  of  character  has  this  difference  from  all 
others:  that  it  requires  no  coherency  of  plot,  and  for  this 
reason,  as  in  the  case  of  Gil  Bias,  it  is  sometimes  called 
the  novel  of  adventure.  It  turns  on  the  humours  of  the 
persons  represented;  these  are,  to  be  sure,  embodied  in 
incidents,  but  the  incidents  themselves,  being  tributary, 
need  not  march  in  a  progression;  and  the  characters  may 
be  statically  shown.  As  they  enter,  so  they  may  go  out; 
they  must  be  consistent,  but  they  need  not  grow.  Here 
Mr.  James  will  recognise  the  note  of  much  of  his  own 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        241 

work:  he  treats,  for  the  most  part,  the  statics  of  char- 
acter, studying  it  at  rest  or  only  gently  moved;  and, 
with  his  usual  delicate  and  just  artistic  instinct,  he 
avoids  those  stronger  passions  which  would  detorm  the 
attitudes  he  loves  to  study,  and  change  his  sitters  from 
the  humourists  of  ordinary  life  to  the  brute  forces  and 
bare  types  of  more  emotional  moments.  In  his  recent 
Author  of  Beltraffio,  so  just  in  conception,  so  nimble  and 
neat  in  workmanship,  strong  passion  is  indeed  em- 
ployed; but  observe  that  it  is  not  displayed.  Even  in 
the  heroine  the  working  of  the  passion  is  suppressed; 
and  the  great  struggle,  the  true  tragedy,  the  scene-d- 
faire,  passes  unseen  behind  the  panels  of  a  locked  door. 
The  delectable  invention  of  the  young  visitor  is  intro- 
duced, consciously  or  not,  to  this  end:  that  Mr.  James, 
true  to  his  method,  might  avoid  the  scene  of  passion. 
I  trust  no  reader  will  suppose  me  guilty  of  undervaluing 
this  little  masterpiece.  I  mean  merely  that  it  belongs  to 
one  marked  class  of  novel,  and  that  it  would  have  been 
very  differently  conceived  and  treated  had  it  belonged 
to  that  other  marked  class,  of  which  I  now  proceed  to 
speak. 

I  take  pleasure  in  calling  the  dramatic  novel  by  that 
name,  because  it  enables  me  to  point  out  by  the  way  a 
strange  and  peculiarly  English  misconception.  It  is 
sometimes  supposed  that  the  drama  consists  of  incident. 
It  consists  of  passion,  which  gives  the  actor  his  oppor- 
tunity; and  that  passion  must  progressively  increase,  or 
the  actor,  as  the  piece  proceeded,  would  be  unable  to 
carry  the  audience  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  pitch  of 
interest  and  emotion.  A  good  serious  play  must  there- 
fore be  founded  on  one  of  the  passionate  cruces  of  life, 
where  duty  and  inclination  come  nobly  to  the  grapple, 


242       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

and  the  same  is  true  of  what  I  call,  for  that  reason,  the 
dramatic  novel.  I  will  instance  a  few  worthy  specimens, 
all  of  our  own  day  and  language:  Meredith's  Rhoda 
Fleming,  that  wonderful  and  painful  book,  long  out  of 
print 1  and  hunted  for  at  book-stalls  like  an  Aldine; 
Hardy's  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes;  and  two  of  Charles  Reade's, 
Griffith  Gaunt  and  The  Double  Marriage,  originally  called 
White  Lies,  and  founded  (by  an  accident  quaintly  fa- 
vourable to  my  nomenclature)  on  a  play  by  Maquet,  the 
partner  of  the  great  Dumas.  In  this  kind  of  novel  the 
closed  door  of  Ihe  Author  of  Beltraffio  must  be  broken 
open;  passion  must  appear  upon  the  scene  and  utter  its 
last  word;  passion  is  the  be-all  and  the  end-all,  the  plot 
and  the  solution,  the  protagonist  and  the  deus  ex  ma- 
china  in  one.  The  characters  may  come  anyhow  upon 
the  stage:  we  do  not  care;  the  point  is,  that,  before  they 
leave  it,  they  shall  become  transfigured  and  raised  out 
of  themselves  by  passion.  It  may  be  part  of  the  design 
to  draw  them  with  detail;  to  depict  a  full-length  char- 
acter, and  then  behold  it  melt  and  change  in  the  furnace 
of  emotion.  But  there  is  no  obligation  of  the  sort;  nice 
portraiture  is  not  required;  and  we  are  content  to  accept 
mere  abstract  types,  so  they  be  strongly  and  sincerely 
moved.  A  novel  of  this  class  may  be  even  great,  and  yet 
contai  nno  individual  figure;  it  may  be  great,  because  it 
displays  the  workings  of  the  perturbed  heart  and  the  im- 
personal utterance  of  passion;  and  with  an  artist  of  the 
second  class  it  is,  indeed,  even  more  likely  to  be  great, 
when  the  issue  has  thus  been  narrowed  and  the  whole 
force  of  the  writer's  mind  directed  to  passion  alone. 
Cleverness  again,  which  has  its  fair  field  in  the  novel  of 
character,  is  debarred  all  entry  upon  this  more  solemn 

1  Now  no  longer  so,  thank  Heaven!  —  Author. 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        243 

theatre.  A  far-fetched  motive,  an  ingenious  evasion  of 
the  issue,  a  witty  instead  of  a  passionate  turn,  offend  us 
like  an  insincerity.  All  should  be  plain,  all  straight-for- 
ward to  the  end.  Hence  it  is  that,  in  Rhoda  Fleming, 
Mrs.  Lovel  raises  such  resentment  in  the  reader;  her 
motives  are  too  flimsy,  her  ways  are  too  equivocal,  for 
the  weight  and  strength  of  her  surroundings.  Hence  the 
hot  indignation  of  the  reader  when  Balzac,  after  having 
begun  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  in  terms  of  strong  if 
somewhat  swollen  passion,  cuts  the  knot  by  the  derange- 
ment of  the  hero's  clock.  Such  personages  and  incidents 
belong  to  the  novel  of  character;  they  are  out  of  place  in 
the  high  society  of  the  passions;  when  the  passions  are 
introduced  in  art  at  their  full  height,  we  look  to  see 
them,  not  baffled  and  impotently  striving,  as  in  life,  but 
towering  above  circumstance  and  acting  substitutes  for 
fate. 

And  here  I  can  imagine  Mr.  James,  with  his  lucid 
sense,  to  intervene.  To  much  of  what  I  have  said  he 
would  apparently  demur;  in  much  he  would,  somewhat 
impatiently,  acquiesce.  It  may  be  true;  but  it  is  not 
what  he  desired  to  say  or  to  hear  said.  He  spoke  of  the 
finished  picture  and  its  worth  when  done;  I,  of  the 
brushes,  the  palette,  and  the  north  light.  He  uttered  his 
views  in  the  tone  and  for  the  ear  of  good  society;  I,  with 
the  emphasis  and  technicalities  of  the  obtrusive  student. 
But  the  point,  I  may  reply,  is  not  merely  to  amuse  the 
public,  but  to  offer  helpful  advice  to  the  young  writer. 
And  the  young  writer  will  not  so  much  be  helped  by 
genial  pictures  of  what  an  art  may  aspire  to  at  its  high- 
est, as  by  a  true  idea  of  what  it  must  be  on  the  lowest 
terms.  The  best  that  we  can  say  to  him  is  this:  Let  him 
choose  a  motive,  whether  of  character  or  passion;  care- 


244       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

fully  construct  his  plot  so  that  every  incident  is  an  illus- 
tration of  the  motive,  and  every  property  employed 
shall  bear  to  it  a  near  relation  of  congruity  or  contrast; 
avoid  a  sub-plot,  unless,  as  sometimes  in  Shakespeare, 
the  sub-plot  be  a  reversion  or  complement  of  the  main 
intrigue;  suffer  not  his  style  to  flag  below  the  level  of  the 
argument;  pitch  the  key  of  conversation,  not  with  any 
thought  of  how  men  talk  in  parlours,  but  with  a  single 
eye  to  the  degree  of  passion  he  may  be  called  on  to  ex- 
press; and  allow  neither  himself  in  the  narrative  nor  any 
character  in  the  course  of  the  dialogue,  to  utter  one  sen- 
tence that  is  not  part  and  parcel  of  the  business  of  the 
story  or  the  discussion  of  the  problem  involved.  Let 
him  not  regret  if  this  shortens  his  book;  it  will  be  better 
so;  for  to  add  irrelevant  matter  is  not  to  lengthen  but  to 
bury.  Let  him  not  mind  if  he  miss  a  thousand  qualities, 
so  that  he  keeps  unflaggingly  in  pursuit  of  the  one  he  has 
chosen.  Let  him  not  care  particularly  if  he  miss  the  tone 
of  conversation,  the  pungent  material  detail  of  the  day's 
manners,  the  reproduction  of  the  atmosphere  and  the 
environment.  These  elements  are  not  essential:  a  novel 
may  be  excellent,  and  yet  have  none  of  them;  a  passion 
or  a  character  is  so  much  the  better  depicted  as  it  rises 
clearer  from  material  circumstance.  In  this  age  of  the 
particular,  let  him  remember  the  ages  of  the  abstract, 
the  great  books  of  the  past,  the  brave  men  that  lived  be- 
fore Shakespeare  and  before  Balzac.  And  as  the  root  of 
the  whole  matter,  let  him  bear  in  mind  that  his  novel  is 
not  a  transcript  of  life,  to  be  judged  by  its  exactitude; 
but  a  simplification  of  some  side  or  point  of  life,  to  stand 
or  fall  by  its  significant  simplicity.  For  although,  in 
great  men,  working  upon  great  motives,  what  we  ob- 
serve and  admire  is  often  their  complexity,  yet  under- 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON        245 

neath  appearances  the  truth  remains  unchanged:  that 
simplification  was  their  method,  and  that  simplicity  is 
their  excellence. 

II 

Since  the  above  was  written  another  novelist  has 
entered  repeatedly  the  lists  of  theory:  one  well  worthy 
of  mention,  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells;  and  none  ever  couched 
a  lance  with  narrower  convictions.  His  own  work  and 
those  of  his  pupils  and  masters  singly  occupy  his  mind; 
he  is  the  bondslave,  the  zealot  of  his  school;  he  dreams 
of  an  advance  in  art  like  what  there  is  in  science;  he 
thinks  of  past  things  as  radically  dead;  he  thinks  a  form 
can  be  outlived:  a  strange  immersion  in  his  own  history; 
a  strange  forgetfulness  of  the  history  of  the  race !  Mean- 
while, by  a  glance  at  his  own  works  (could  he  see  them 
with  the  eager  eyes  of  his  readers)  much  of  this  illusion 
would  be  dispelled.  For  while  he  holds  all  the  poor  little 
orthodoxies  of  the  day  —  no  poorer  and  no  smaller  than 
those  of  yesterday  or  to-morrow,  poor  and  small,  indeed, 
only  so  far  as  they  are  exclusive  —  the  living  quality  of 
much  that  he  has  done  is  of  a  contrary,  I  had  almost 
said  of  a  heretical,  complexion.  A  man,  as  I  read  him, 
of  an  originally  strong  romantic  bent  —  a  certain  glow 
of  romance  still  resides  in  many  of  his  books,  and  lends 
them  their  distinction.  As  by  accident  he  runs  out  and 
revels  in  the  exceptional;  and  it  is  then,  as  often  as  not, 
that  his  reader  rejoices — justly,  as  I  contend.  For  in 
all  this  excessive  eagerness  to  be  centrally  human,  is 
there  not  one  central  human  thing  that  Mr.  Howells  is 
too  often  tempted  to  neglect:  I  mean  himself?  A  poet, 
a  finished  artist,  a  man  in  love  with  the  appearances  of 
life,  a  cunning  reader  of  the  mind,  he  has  other  passions 


246       A  HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE 

and  aspirations  than  those  he  loves  to  draw.  And  why 
should  he  suppress  himself  and  do  such  reverence  to  the 
Lemuel  Barkers?  The  obvious  is  not  of  necessity  the 
normal;  fashion  rules  and  deforms;  the  majority  fall 
tamely  into  the  contemporary  shape,  and  thus  attain, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  true  observer,  only  a  higher  power  of 
insignificance;  and  the  danger  is  lest,  in  seeking  to  draw 
the  normal,  a  man  should  draw  the  null,  and  write  the 
novel  of  society  instead  of  the  romance  of  man. 


STORY-TELLING  i 

GEORGE  ELIOT 

i 8 19-1880 

"Story-Telling"  is  reprinted  from  Leaves  from  a  Notebook 
(1884).  Although  George  Eliot  wrote  relatively  little  about 
literary  art,  it  is  interesting  to  note  in  the  essays  and  papers 
which  she  has  left  that  she  was  quite  thoroughly  conscious  of 
her  own  literary  processes. 

WHAT  is  the  best  way  of  telling  a  story?  Since 
the  standard  must  be  the  interest  of  the  au- 
dience, there  must  be  several  or  many  good  ways  rather 
than  one  best.  For  we  get  interested  in  the  stories  life 
presents  to  us  through  divers  orders  and  modes  of  pres- 
entation. Very  commonly  our  first  awakening  to  a 
desire  of  knowing  a  man's  past  or  future  comes  from  our 
seeing  him  as  a  stranger  in  some  unusual  or  pathetic  or 
humorous  situation,  or  manifesting  some  remarkable 
characteristics.  We  make  inquiries  in  consequence,  or 
we  become  observant  and  attentive  whenever  oppor- 
tunities of  knowing  more  may  happen  to  present  them- 
selves without  our  search.  You  have  seen  a  refined  face 
among  the  prisoners  picking  tow  in  jail;  you  afterwards 
see  the  same  unforgettable  face  in  a  pulpit:  he  must  be  of 
dull  fibre  who  would  not  care  to  know  more  about  a  life 
which  showed  such  contrasts,  though  he  might  gather 
his  knowledge  in  a  fragmentary  and  unchronological 
way. 

Again,  we  have  heard  much,  or  at  least  something  not 
quite  common,  about  a  man  whom  we  have  never  seen, 

1  Copyrighted  by  William  Blackwood  and  Sons,  Edinburgh,  Scot- 
land.    Reprinted  by  permission. 


248  STORY-TELLING 

and  hence  we  look  round  with  curiosity  when  we  are 
told  that  he  is  present;  whatever  he  says  or  does  before 
us  is  charged  with  a  meaning  due  to  our  previous  hear- 
say knowledge  about  him,  gathered  either  from  dialogue 
of  which  he  was  expressly  and  emphatically  the  subject, 
or  from  incidental  remark,  or  from  general  report  either 
in  or  out  of  print. 

These  indirect  ways  of  arriving  at  knowledge  are 
always  the  most  stirring  even  in  relation  to  impersonal 
subjects.  To  see  a  chemical  experiment  gives  an  attrac- 
tiveness to  a  definition  of  chemistry,  and  fills  it  with  a 
significance  which  it  would  never  have  had  without  the 
pleasant  shock  of  an  unusual  sequence,  such  as  the 
transformation  of  a  solid  into  gas,  and  vice  versa.  To  see 
a  word  for  the  first  time  either  as  substantive  or  adjec- 
tive in  a  connection  where  we  care  about  knowing  its 
complete  meaning,  is  the  way  to  vivify  its  meaning  in 
our  recollection.  Curiosity  becomes  the  more  eager 
from  the  incompleteness  of  the  first  information.  More- 
over, it  is  in  this  way  that  memory  works  in  its  inci- 
dental revival  of  events;  some  salient  experience  appears 
in  inward  vision,  and  in  consequence  the  antecedent 
facts  are  retraced  from  what  is  regarded  as  the  begin- 
ning of  the  episode  in  which  that  experience  made  a 
more  or  less  strikingly  memorable  part.  "Ah!  I  remem- 
ber addressing  the  mob  from  the  hustings  at  West- 
minister—  you  wouldn't  have  thought  that  I  could 
ever  have  been  in  such  a  position.  Well,  how  I  came 
there  was  in  this  way";  and  then  follows  a  retrospective 
narration. 

The  modes  of  telling  a  story  founded  on  these  proc- 
esses of  outward  and  inward  life  derive  their  effective- 
ness from  the  superior  mastery  of  images  and  pictures  in 


GEORGE  ELIOT  249 

grasping  the  attention,  — or,  one  might  say  with  more 
fundamental  accuracy,  from  the  fact  that  our  earliest, 
strongest  impressions,  our  most  intimate  convictions, 
are  simply  images  added  to  more  or  less  of  sensation. 
These  are  the  primitive  instruments  of  thought.  Hence 
it  is  not  surprising  that  early  poetry  took  this  way,  — 
telling  a  daring  deed,  a  glorious  achievement,  without 
caring  for  what  went  before.  The  desire  for  orderly 
narration  is  a  later,  more  reflective  birth.  The  presence 
of  the  Jack  in  the  box  affects  every  child;  it  is  the  more 
reflective  lad,  the  miniature  philosopher,  who  wants  to 
know  how  he  got  there. 

The  only  stories  life  presents  to  us  in  an  orderly  way 
are  those  of  our  autobiography,  or  the  career  of  our 
companions  from  our  childhood  upwards,  or  perhaps  of 
our  own  children.  But  it  is  a  great  art  to  make  a  con- 
nected, strictly  relevant  narrative  of  such  careers  as 
we  can  recount  from  the  beginning.  In  these  cases  the 
sequence  of  associations  is  almost  sure  to  overmaster 
the  sense  of  proportion.  Such  narratives  ab  ovo  are 
summer's-day  stories  for  happy  loungers;  not  the  cup  of 
self-forgetting  excitement  to  the  busy  who  can  snatch 
an  hour  of  entertainment. 

But  the  simple  opening  of  a  story  with  a  date  and 
necessary  account  of  places  and  people,  passing  on 
quietly  towards  the  more  rousing  elements  of  narrative 
and  dramatic  presentation,  without  need  of  retrospect, 
has  its  advantages,  which  have  to  be  measured  by  the 
nature  of  the  story.  Spirited  narrative,  without  more 
than  a  touch  of  dialogue  here  and  there,  may  be  made 
eminently  interesting,  and  is  suited  to  the  novelette. 
Examples  of  its  charm  are  seen  in  the  short  tales  in 
which  the  French  have  a  mastery  never  reached  by  the 


250  STORY-TELLING 

English,  who  usually  demand  coarser  flavours  than  are 
given  by  that  delightful  gayety  which  is  well  described 
by  La  Fontaine  as  not  anything  that  provokes  fits  of 
laughter,  but  a  certain  charm,  an  agreeable  mode  of 
handling,  which  lends  attractiveness  to  all  subjects, 
even  the  most  serious.  And  it  is  this  sort  of  gayety 
which  plays  around  the  best  French  novelettes.  But 
the  opening  chapters  of  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield  are  as 
fine  as  anything  that  can  be  done  in  this  way. 

Why  should  a  story  not  be  told  in  the  most  irregular 
fashion  that  an  author's  idiosyncrasy  may  prompt,  pro- 
vided he  gives  us  what  we  can  enjoy?  The  objections 
to  Sterne's  wild  way  of  telling  Tristram  Shandy  lie 
more  solidly  in  the  quality  of  the  interrupting  matter 
than  in  the  fact  of  interruption.  The  dear  public  would 
do  well  to  reflect  that  they  are  often  bored  from  the 
want  of  flexibility  in  their  own  minds.  They  are  like  the 
topers  of  "one  liquor." 


THE  AIM  OF  FICTIONAL  ART 

JOSEPH  CONRAD 

1857- 

This  essay  is  the  Preface  to  The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus,  or 
The  Children  of  the  Sea,  as  the  story  was  called  in  the  first 
American  edition.  The  Preface  was  not  published  with  the 
book  until  1914,  although  W.  E.  Henley  had  printed  it  as  an 
afterword  when  he  published  the  story  serially  in  the  New 
Review  in  1897.  Concerning  the  theory  of  art  expressed  in  the 
Preface,  Mr.  Conrad  says:  "After  writing  the  last  words  of 
that  book,  in  the  revulsion  of  feeling  before  the  accomplished 
task,  I  understood  I  had  done  with  the  sea,  and  that  hence- 
forth I  had  to  be  a  writer.  And  almost  without  laying  down 
the  pen  I  wrote  a  preface,  trying  to  express  the  spirit  in  which 
I  was  entering  on  the  task  of  my  new  life."  And  if  it  is  per- 
missible to  make  public  a  declaration  that  has  been  uttered 
privately,  it  may  be  said  that  Mr.  Conrad  still  looks  upon  the 
content  of  the  Preface  as  being  essentially  sound. 

A  WORK  that  aspires,  however  humbly,  to  the  con- 
dition of  art  should  carry  its  justification  in  every 
line.  And  art  itself  may  be  denned  as  a  single-minded 
attempt  to  render  the  highest  kind  of  justice  to  the 
visible  universe,  by  bringing  to  light  the  truth,  mani- 
fold and  one,  underlying  its  every  aspect.  It  is  an  at- 
tempt to  find  in  its  forms,  in  its  colours,  in  its  light,  in 
its  shadows,  in  the  aspects  of  matter  and  in  the  facts  of 
life,  what  of  each  is  fundamental,  what  is  enduring  and 
essential  —  their  one  illuminating  and  convincing 
quality  ■ —  the  very  truth  of  their  existence.  The  artist, 
then,  like  the  thinker  or  the  scientist,  seeks  the  truth 

1  Printed  by  permission  of  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company,  Mr. 
Conrad's  American  publishers,  and  with  his  personal  approval. 


252      THE  AIM  OF  FICTIONAL  ART 

and  makes  his  appeal.  Impressed  by  the  aspect  of  the 
world  the  thinker  plunges  into  ideas,  the  scientist  into 
facts  —  whence,  presently,  emerging  they  make  their 
appeal  to  those  qualities  of  our  being  that  fit  us  best  for 
the  hazardous  enterprise  of  living.  They  speak  au- 
thoritatively to  our  common-sense,  to  our  intelligence, 
to  our  desire  of  peace  or  to  our  desire  of  unrest;  not 
seldom  to  our  prejudices,  sometimes  to  our  fears,  often 
to  our  egoism  —  but  always  to  our  credulity.  And 
their  words  are  heard  with  reverence,  for  their  concern 
is  with  weighty  matters;  with  the  cultivation  of  our 
minds  and  the  proper  care  of  our  bodies:  with  the  attain- 
ment of  our  ambitions:  with  the  perfection  of  the  means 
and  the  glorification  of  our  precious  aims. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  artist. 

Confronted  by  the  same  enigmatical  spectacle  the 
artist  descends  within  himself,  and  in  that  lonely  region 
of  stress  and  strife,  if  he  be  deserving  and  fortunate,  he 
finds  the  terms  of  his  appeal.  His  appeal  is  made  to  our 
less  obvious  capacities:  to  that  part  of  our  nature  which, 
because  of  the  warlike  conditions  of  existence,  is  neces- 
sarily kept  out  of  sight  within  the  more  resisting  and 
hard  qualities  —  like  the  vulnerable  body  within  a  steel 
armour.  His  appeal  is  less  loud,  more  profound,  less 
distinct,  more  stirring —  and  sooner  forgotten.  Yet  its 
effect  endures  forever.  The  changing  wisdom  of  succes- 
sive generations  discards  ideas,  questions  facts,  demol- 
ishes theories.  But  the  artist  appeals  to  that  part  of  our 
being  which  is  not  dependent  on  wisdom;  to  that  in  us 
which  is  a  gift  and  not  an  acquisition  —  and,  therefore, 
more  permanently  enduring.  He  speaks  to  our  capacity 
for  delight  and  wonder,  to  the  sense  of  mystery  sur- 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  253 

rounding  our  lives:  to  our  sense  of  pity,  and  beauty,  and 
pain:  to  the  latent  feeling  of  fellowship  with  all  creation 
—  and  to  the  subtle  but  invincible  conviction  of  sol- 
idarity that  knits  together  the  loneliness  of  innumerable 
hearts  to  the  solidarity  in  dreams,  in  joy,  in  sorrow,  in 
aspirations,  in  illusions,  in  hope,  in  fear,  which  binds 
men  to  each  other,  which  binds  together  all  humanity  — 
the  dead  to  the  living  and  the  living  to  the  unborn. 

It  is  only  some  such  train  of  thought,  or  rather  of 
feeling,  that  can  in  a  measure  explain  the  aim  of  the 
attempt,  made  in  the  tale  which  follows,  to  present  an 
unrestful  episode  in  the  obscure  lives  of  a  few  individ- 
uals out  of  all  the  disregarded  multitude  of  the  bewil- 
dered, the  simple  and  the  voiceless.  For,  if  there  is  any 
part  of  truth  in  the  belief  confessed  above,  it  becomes 
evident  that  there  is  not  a  place  of  splendour  or  a  dark 
corner  of  the  earth  that  does  not  deserve,  if  only  a  pass- 
ing glance  of  wonder  and  pity.  The  motive,  then,  may 
be  held  to  justify  the  matter  of  the  work;  but  this  pref- 
ace, which  is  simply  an  avowal  of  endeavour,  cannot 
end  here  —  for  the  avowal  is  not  yet  complete. 

Fiction  —  if  it  at  all  aspires  to  be  art —  appeals  to 
temperament.  And  in  truth  it  must  be,  like  painting, 
like  music,  like  all  art,  the  appeal  of  one  temperament 
to  all  the  other  innumerable  temperaments  whose  subtle 
and  resistless  power  endows  passing  events  with  their 
true  meaning,  and  creates  the  moral,  the  emotional  at- 
mosphere of  the  place  and  time.  Such  an  appeal  to  be 
effective  must  be  an  impression  conveyed  through  the 
senses;  and,  in  fact,  it  cannot  be  made  in  any  other  way, 
because  temperament,  whether  individual  or  collective, 
is  not  amenable  to  persuasion.    All  art,  therefore,  ap- 


254      THE  AIM  OF  FICTIONAL  ART 

peals  primarily  to  the  senses,  and  the  artistic  aim  when 
expressing  itself  in  written  words  must  also  make  its 
appeal  through  the  senses,  if  its  high  desire  is  to  reach 
the  secret  spring  of  responsive  emotions.  It  must 
strenuously  aspire  to  the  plasticity  of  sculpture,  to  the 
colour  of  painting,  and  to  the  magic  suggestiveness  of 
music  —  which  is  the  art  of  arts.  And  it  is  only  through 
complete,  unswerving  devotion  to  the  perfect  blending 
of  form  and  substance;  it  is  only  through  an  unremitting, 
never-discouraged  care  for  the  shape  and  ring  of  sen- 
tences that  an  approach  can  be  made  to  plasticity,  to 
colour;  and  the  light  of  magic  suggestiveness  may  be 
brought  to  play  for  an  evanescent  instant  over  the 
commonplace  surface  of  words:  of  the  old,  old  words, 
worn  thin,  defaced  by  ages  of  careless  usage. 

The  sincere  endeavour  to  accomplish  that  creative 
task,  to  go  as  far  on  that  road  as  his  strength  will  carry 
him,  to  go  undeterred  by  faltering,  weariness  or  re- 
proach, is  the  only  valid  justification  for  the  worker  in 
prose.  And  if  his  conscience  is  clear,  his  answer  to  those 
who,  in  the  tulness  of  a  wisdom  which  looks  for  imme- 
diate profit,  demand  specifically  to  be  edified,  consoled, 
amused;  who  demand  to  be  promptly  improved,  or  en- 
couraged, or  frightened,  or  shocked,  or  charmed,  must 
run  thus:  —  My  task  which  I  am  trying  to  achieve  is, 
by  the  power  of  the  written  word,  to  make  you  hear,  to 
make  you  feel  —  it  is,  before  all,  to  make  you  see.  That 
—  and  no  more,  and  it  is  everything.  If  I  succeed,  you 
shall  find  there  according  to  your  deserts:  encourage- 
ment, consolation,  fear,  charm  —  all  you  demand  and, 
perhaps,  also  that  glimpse  of  truth  for  which  you  have 
forgotten  to  ask. 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  255 

To  snatch  in  a  moment  of  courage,  from  the  remorse- 
less rush  of  time,  a  passing  phase  of  life,  is  only  the  be- 
ginning of  the  task.  The  task  approached  in  tenderness 
and  faith  is  to  hold  up  unquestioningly,  without  choice 
and  without  fear,  the  rescued  fragment  before  all  eyes 
and  in  the  light  of  a  sincere  mood.  It  is  to  show  its  vi- 
bration, its  colour,  its  form;  and  through  its  movement, 
its  form,  and  its  colour,  reveal  the  substance  of  its  truth 
—  disclose  its  inspiring  secret:  the  stress  and  passion 
within  the  core  of  each  convincing  moment.  In  a  single- 
minded  attempt  of  that  kind,  if  one  be  deserving  and 
fortunate,  one  may  perchance  attain  to  such  clearness  of 
sincerity  that  at  last  the  presented  vision  of  regret  or 
pity,  of  terror  or  mirth,  shall  awaken  in  the  hearts  of  the 
beholders  that  feeling  of  unavoidable  solidarity;  of  the 
solidarity  in  mysterious  origin,  in  toil,  in  joy,  in  hope,  in 
uncertain  fate,  which  binds  men  to  each  other  and  all 
mankind  to  the  visible  world. 

It  is  evident  that  he  who,  rightly  or  wrongly,  holds  by 
the  convictions  expressed  above  cannot  be  faithful  to 
any  one  of  the  temporary  formulas  of  his  craft.  The 
enduring  part  of  them  —  the  truth  which  each  only  im- 
perfectly veils  —  should  abide  with  him  as  the  most 
precious  of  his  possessions,  but  they  all:  Realism,  Ro- 
manticism, Naturalism,  even  the  unofficial  sentimen- 
talism  (which  like  the  poor,  is  exceedingly  difficult  to 
get  rid  of),  all  these  gods  must,  after  a  short  period  of 
fellowship,  abandon  him  —  even  on  the  very  threshold 
of  the  temple  —  to  the  stammerings  of  his  conscience 
and  to  the  outspoken  consciousness  of  the  difficulties  of 
his  work.  In  that  uneasy  solitude  the  supreme  cry  of 
Art  for  Art,  itself,  loses  the  exciting  ring  of  its  apparent 


256      THE  AIM  OF  FICTIONAL  ART 

immorality.  It  sounds  far  off.  It  has  ceased  to  be  a  cry, 
and  is  heard  only  as  a  whisper,  often  incomprehensible, 
but  at  times  and  faintly  encouraging. 

Sometimes,  stretched  at  ease  in  the  shade  of  a  road- 
side tree,  we  watch  the  motions  of  a  labourer  in  a  dis- 
tant field,  and  after  a  time,  begin  to  wonder  languidly 
as  to  what  the  fellow  may  be  at.  We  watch  the  move- 
ments of  his  body,  the  waving  of  his  arms,  we  see  him 
bend  down,  stand  up,  hesitate,  begin  again.  It  may 
add  to  the  charm  of  an  idle  hour  to  be  told  the  purpose 
of  his  exertions.  If  we  know  he  is  trying  to  lift  a  stone, 
to  dig  a  ditch,  to  uproot  a  stump,  we  look  with  a  more 
real  interest  at  his  efforts;  we  are  disposed  to  condone 
the  jar  of  his  agitation  upon  the  restfulness  of  the  land- 
scape; and  even,  if  in  a  brotherly  frame  of  mind,  we  may 
bring  ourselves  to  forgive  his  failure.  We  understood  his 
object,  and,  after  all,  the  fellow  has  tried,  and  perhaps 
he  had  not  the  strength  —  and  perhaps  he  had  not  the 
knowledge.    We  forgive,  go  on  our  way  —  and  forget. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  workman  of  art.  Art  is  long  and 
life  is  short,  and  success  is  very  far  off.  And  thus,  doubt- 
ful of  strength  to  travel  so  far,  we  talk  a  little  about  the 
aim  —  the  aim  of  art,  which,  like  life  itself,  is  inspiring, 
difficult  —  obscured  by  mists.  It  is  not  in  the  clear 
logic  of  a  triumphant  conclusion;  it  is  not  in  the  unveil- 
ing of  one  of  those  heartless  secrets  which  are  called  the 
Laws  of  Nature.  It  is  not  less  great,  but  only  more 
difficult. 

To  arrest,  for  the  space  of  a  breath,  the  hands  busy 
about  the  work  of  the  earth,  and  compel  men  entranced 
by  the  sight  of  distant  goals  to  glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  surrounding  vision  of  form  and  colour,  of  sunshine 
and  shadows;  to  make  them  pause  for  a  look,  for  a  sigh, 


JOSEPH  CONRAD  257 

for  a  smile  —  such  is  the  aim,  difficult  and  evanescent, 
and  reserved  only  for  a  very  few  to  achieve.  But  some- 
times, by  the  deserving  and  the  fortunate,  even  that 
task  is  accomplished.  And  when  it  is  accomplished  — 
behold! — all  the  truth  of  life  is  there:  a  moment  of 
vision,  a  sigh,  a  smile  —  and  the  return  to  an  eternal 
rest. 


A  PROBLEM  IN  FICTION  i 

FRANK  NORRIS 

i 870-1902 

"  A  Problem  in  Fiction  "  is  reprinted  from  The  Responsibilities 
of  the  Novelist,  referred  to  on  an  earlier  page.  The  author 
makes  a  clear  and  sound  distinction  between  mere  literal  fact 
and  truth. 

SO  many  people  —  writers  more  especially  —  claim 
stridently  and  with  a  deal  of  gesturing  that  because 
a  thing  has  happened  it  is  therefore  true.  They  have 
written  a  story,  let  us  say,  and  they  bring  it  to  you  to 
criticize.  You  lay  your  finger  upon  a  certain  passage 
and  say  "Not  true  to  life."  The  author  turns  on  you 
and  then  annihilates  you  —  in  his  own  mind  —  with  the 
words,  "But  it  actually  happened."  Of  course,  then,  it 
must  be  true.   On  the  contrary,  it  is  accurate  only. 

For  the  assumption  is,  that  truth  is  a  higher  power  of 
accuracy  —  that  the  true  thing  includes  the  accurate; 
and  assuming  this,  the  authors  of  novels —  that  are  not 
successful  —  suppose  that  if  they  are  accurate,  if  they 
tell  the  thing  just  as  they  saw  it,  that  they  are  truthful. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  show  that  a  man  may  be  as  accurate 
as  the  spectroscope  and  yet  lie  like  a  Chinese  diplomat. 
As  for  instance:  Let  us  suppose  you  have  never  seen  a 
sheep,  never  heard  of  sheep,  don't  know  sheep  from 
shavings.  It  devolves  upon  me  to  enlighten  your  igno- 
rance. I  go  out  into  the  field  and  select  from  the  flock  a 
black  sheep,  bring  it  before  you,  and,  with  the  animal 
there  under  your  eyes,  describe  it  in  detail,  faithfully, 
omitting    nothing,    falsifying    nothing,    exaggerating 

1  Used  by  permission  of  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company. 
258 


FRANK  NORRIS  259 

nothing.  I  am  painfully  accurate.  But  you  go  away 
with  the  untrue  conviction  that  all  sheep  are  black!  I 
have  been  accurate,  but  I  have  not  been  true. 

So  it  is  with  very,  very  many  novels,  written  with  all 
earnestness  and  seriousness.  Every  incident  has  hap- 
pened in  real  life,  and  because  it  is  picturesque,  because 
it  is  romantic,  because,  in  a  word,  it  is  like  some  other 
novel,  it  is  seized  upon  at  once,  and  serves  as  the  nucleus 
of  a  tale.  Then,  because  this  tale  fails  of  success,  be- 
cause it  fails  to  impress,  the  author  blames  the  public, 
not  himself.  He  thinks  he  has  gone  to  life  for  his  ma- 
terial, and  so  must  be  original,  new  and  true.  It  is  not 
so.  Life  itself  is  not  always  true;  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
you  may  be  able  to  say  that  life  is  not  always  true  to 
life  —  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  artist.  It  happened 
once  that  it  was  my  unfortunate  duty  to  tell  a  certain 
man  of  the  violent  death  of  his  only  brother,  whom  he 
had  left  well  and  happy  but  an  hour  before.  This  is  how 
he  took  it:  He  threw  up  both  hands  and  staggered  back, 
precisely  as  they  do  in  melodrama,  exclaiming  all  in  a 
breath:  "Oh,  my  God!  This  is  terrible!  What  will 
mother  say?  "  You  may  say  what  you  please,  this  man 
was  not  true  to  life.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  teller 
of  tales  he  was  theatrical,  false,  untrue,  and  though  the 
incident  was  an  actual  fact  and  though  the  emotion  was 
real,  it  had  no  value  as  "material,"  and  no  fiction  writer 
in  his  senses  would  have  thought  of  using  it  in  his  story. 

Naturally  enough  it  will  be  asked  what,  then,  is  the 
standard.  How  shall  the  writer  guide  himself  in  the 
treatment  of  a  pivotal,  critical  scene,  or  how  shall  the 
reader  judge  whether  or  not  he  is  true?  Perhaps,  after 
all,  the  word  "seem,"  and  not  the  word  "true,"  is  the 
most  important.    Of  course  no  good  novelist,  no  good 


26o  A  PROBLEM  IN  FICTION 

artist,  can  represent  life  as  it  actually  is.  Nobody  can, 
for  nobody  knows.  Who  is  to  say  what  life  actually  is? 
It  seems  easy  —  easy  for  us  who  have  it  and  live  in  it 
and  see  it  and  hear  it  and  feel  it  every  millionth  part  of 
every  second  of  the  time.  I  say  that  life  is  actually 
this  or  that,  and  you  say  it  is  something  else,  and  num- 
ber three  says  "Lo!  here,"  and  number  four  says  "Lo! 
there."  Not  even  science  is  going  to  help  you;  no  two 
photographs,  even,  will  convey  just  the  same  impression 
of  the  same  actuality;  and  here  we  are  dealing  not  with 
science,  but  with  art,  that  instantly  involves  the  per- 
sonality of  the  artist  and  all  that  that  means.  Even  the 
same  artist  will  not  see  the  same  thing  twice  exactly 
alike.  His  personality  is  one  thing  to-day  and  another 
thing  to-morrow  —  is  one  thing  before  dinner  and  an- 
other thing  after  it.  How,  then,  to  determine  what  life 
actually  is? 

The  point  is  just  this.  In  the  fine  arts  we  do  not  care 
one  little  bit  about  what  life  actually  is,  but  what  it 
looks  like  to  an  interesting,  impressionable  man,  and  if 
he  tells  his  story  or  paints  his  picture  so  that  the  ma- 
jority of  intelligent  people  will  say,  "Yes,  that  must 
have  been  just  about  what  would  have  happened  under 
those  circumstances,"  he  is  true.  His  accuracy  cuts  no 
figure  at  all.  He  need  not  be  accurate  if  he  does  not 
choose  to  be.  If  he  sees  fit  to  be  inaccurate  in  order  to 
make  his  point  —  so  only  his  point  be  the  conveying  of 
a  truthful  impression  - —  that  is  his  affair.  We  have 
nothing  to  do  with  that.  Consider  the  study  of  a  French 
cuirassier  by  Detaille;  where  the  sunlight  strikes  the 
brown  coat  of  the  horse,  you  will  see,  if  you  look  close,  a 
mere  smear  of  blue  —  light  blue.  This  is  inaccurate. 
The  horse  is  not  blue,  nor  has  he  any  blue  spots.   Stand 


FRANK  NORRIS  261 

at  the  proper  distance  and  the  blue  smear  resolves  itself 
into  the  glossy  reflection  of  the  sun,  and  the  effect  is 
true. 

And  in  fiction:  Take  the  fine  scene  in  "Ivanhoe," 
where  Rebecca,  looking  from  the  window,  describes  the 
assault  upon  the  outer  walls  of  the  castle  to  the  wounded 
knight  lying  on  the  floor  in  the  room  behind  her.  If  you 
stop  and  think,  you  will  see  that  Rebecca  never  could 
have  found  such  elaborate  language  under  the  stress  of 
so  great  excitement — those  cleverly  managed  little 
climaxes  in  each  phrase,  building  up  to  the  great  climax 
of  the  paragraph,  all  the  play  of  rhetoric,  all  the  nice 
chain  and  adjustment  of  adjectives;  she  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  done  it.  Neither  you,  nor  I,  nor  any  of  us, 
with  all  the  thought  and  time  and  labour  at  our  com- 
mand, could  have  ever  written  the  passage.  But  is  it  not 
admirably  true  —  true  as  the  truth  itself?  It  is  not 
accurate:  it  is  grossly,  ludicrously  inaccurate;  but  the 
fire  and  leap  and  vigor  of  it;  there  is  where  the  truth  is. 
Scott  wanted  you  to  get  an  impression  of  that  assault 
on  the  barbican,  and  you  do  get  it.  You  can  hear  those 
axes  on  the  outer  gate  as  plainly  as  Rebecca  could;  you 
can  see  the  ladders  go  up,  can  hear  them  splinter,  can 
see  and  feel  and  know  all  the  rush  and  trample  and 
smashing  of  that  fine  fight,  with  the  Fetterlock  Knight 
always  to  the  fore,  as  no  merely  accurate  description  — 
accurate  to  five  points  of  decimals  —  could  ever  presentit. 

So  that  one  must  remember  the  distinction,  and  claim 
no  more  for  accuracy  than  it  deserves  —  and  that's  but 
little.  Anybody  can  be  accurate — the  man  with  the 
foot-rule  is  that.  Accuracy  is  the  attainment  of  small 
minds,  the  achievement  of  the  commonplace,  a  mere 
machine-made  thing  that  comes  with  niggardly  research 


262  A  PROBLEM  IN  FICTION 

and  ciphering  and  mensuration  and  the  multiplication 
table,  good  in  its  place,  so  only  the  place  is  very  small. 
In  fiction  it  can  under  certain  circumstances  be  dis- 
pensed with  altogether.  It  is  not  a  thing  to  be  striven 
for.  To  be  true  is  the  all-important  business,  and,  once 
attaining  that,  "all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you."  Paint  the  horse  pea-green  if  it  suits  your  purpose; 
fill  the  mouth  of  Rebecca  with  gasconades  and  rhodo- 
montades  interminable:  these  things  do  not  matter.  It 
is  truth  that  matters,  and  the  point  is  whether  the 
daubs  of  pea-green  will  look  like  horseflesh  and  the 
mouth-filling  words  create  the  impression  of  actual 
battle. 


DE  FINIBUS 

WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY 

1811-1863 

"De  Finibus"  appeared  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  August, 
1862. 

WHEN  Swift  was  in  love  with  Stella,  and  des- 
patching her  a  letter  from  London  thrice  a 
month,  by  the  Irish  packet,  you  may  remember  how  he 
would  begin  Letter  No.  xxiii,  we  will  say,  on  the  very 
day  when  xxii  had  been  sent  away,  stealing  out  of  the 
coffee-house  or  the  assembly  so  as  to  be  able  to  prattle 
with  his  dear;  never  letting  go  her  kind  hand,  as 
it  were,'  as  some  commentator  or  other  has  said  in 
speaking  of  the  Dean  and  his  amour.  When  Mr.  John- 
son, walking  to  Dodsley's,  and  touching  the  posts  in  Pall 
Mall  as  he  walked,  forgot  to  pat  the  head  of  one  of  them, 
he  went  back  and  imposed  his  hands  on  it  —  impelled  I 
know  not  by  what  superstition.  I  have  this  I  hope  not 
dangerous  mania  too.  As  soon  as  a  piece  of  work  is  out 
of  hand,  and  before  going  to  sleep,  I  like  to  begin  an- 
other; it  may  be  to  write  only  half-a-dozen  lines:  but 
that  is  something  towards  Number  the  Next.  The 
printer's  boy  has  not  yet  reached  Green  Arbour  Court 
with  the  copy.  Those  people  who  were  alive  half-an- 
hour  since,  Pendennis,  Clive  Newcome,  and  (what  do 
you  call  him?  what  was  the  name  of  the  last  hero?  I 
remember  now!)  Philip  Firmin,  have  hardly  drunk  their 
glass  of  wine,  and  the  mammas  have  only  this  minute 
got  the  children's  cloaks  on,  and  have  been  bowed  out  of 
my  premises — and  here  I  come  back  to  the  study  again: 

263 


264  DE  FINIBUS 

tamen  usque  recurro.  How  lonely  it  looks  now  all  these 
people  are  gone!  My  dear  good  friends,  some  folk  are 
utterly  tired  of  you,  and  say  '  What  a  poverty  of  friends 
the  man  has!  He  is  always  asking  us  to  meet  those  Pen- 
dennises,  Newcomes,  and  so  forth.  Why  does  he  not  in- 
troduce us  to  some  new  characters?  Why  is  he  not 
thrilling  like  Twostars,  learned  and  profound  like 
Threestars,  exquisitely  humorous  and  human  like  Four- 
stars?  Why,  finally,  is  he  not  somebody  else?  '  My 
good  people,  it  is  not  only  impossible  to  please  you  all, 
but  it  is  absurd  to  try.  The  dish  which  one  man  de- 
vours, another  dislikes.  Is  the  dinner  of  to-day  not  to 
your  taste?  Let  us  hope  to-morrow's  entertainment 
will  be  more  agreeable.  ...  I  resume  my  original  sub- 
ject. What  an  odd,  pleasant,  humorous,  melancholy 
feeling  it  is  to  sit  in  the  study  alone  and  quiet,  now  all 
these  people  are  gone  who  have  been  boarding  and  lodg- 
ing with  me  for  twenty  months!  They  have  interrupted 
my  rest:  they  have  plagued  me  at  all  sorts  of  minutes: 
they  have  thrust  themselves  upon  me  when  I  was  ill,  or 
wished  to  be  idle,  and  I  have  growled  out  a  '  Be  hanged 
to  you,  can't  you  leave  me  alone  now?  '  Once  or  twice 
they  have  prevented  my  going  out  to  dinner.  Many  and 
many  a  time  they  have  prevented  my  coming  home,  be- 
cause I  knew  they  were  there  waiting  in  the  study,  and 
a  plague  take  them!  and  I  have  left  home  and  family, 
and  gone  to  dine  at  the  Club,  and  told  nobody  where  I 
went.  They  have  bored  me,  those  people.  They  have 
plagued  me  at  all  sorts  of  uncomfortable  hours.  They 
have  made  such  a  disturbance  in  my  mind  and  house, 
that  sometimes  I  have  hardly  known  what  was  going  on 
in  my  family  and  scarcely  have  heard  what  my  neigh- 
bour said  to  me.   They  are  gone  at  last,  and  you  would 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY    265 

expect  me  to  be  at  ease?  Far  from  it.  I  should  almost 
be  glad  if  Woolcomb  would  walk  in  and  talk  to  me;  or 
Twysden  reappear,  take  his  place  in  that  chair  opposite 
me,  and  begin  one  of  his  tremendous  stories. 

Madmen,  you  know,  see  visions,  hold  conversations 
with,  even  draw  the  likeness  of,  people  invisible  to  you 
and  me.  Is  this  making  of  people  out  of  fancy  madness? 
and  are  novel-writers  at  all  entitled  to  strait-waist- 
coats? I  often  forget  people's  names  in  life;  and  in  my 
own  stories  contritely  own  that  I  make  dreadful  blun- 
ders regarding  them;  but  I  declare,  my  dear  sir,  with 
respect  to  the  personages  introduced  into  your  humble 
servant's  fables,  I  know  the  people  utterly  —  I  know 
the  sound  of  their  voices.  A  gentleman  came  in  to  see 
me  the  other  day,  who  was  so  like  the  picture  of  Philip 
Firmin  in  Mr.  Walker's  charming  drawings  in  the  Corn- 
hill  Magazine  that  he  was  quite  a  curiosity  to  me.  The 
same  eyes,  beard,  shoulders,  just  as  you  have  seen  them 
from  month  to  month.  Well,  he  is  not  like  the  Philip 
Firmin  in  my  mind.  Asleep,  asleep  in  the  grave,  lies  the 
bold,  the  generous,  the  reckless,  the  tender-hearted 
creature  whom  I  have  made  to  pass  through  those  ad- 
ventures which  have  just  been  brought  to  an  end.  It  is 
years  since  I  heard  the  laughter  ringing,  or  saw  the 
bright  blue  eyes.  When  I  knew  him  both  were  young. 
I  become  young  as  I  think  of  him.  And  this  morning  he 
was  alive  again  in  this  room,  ready  to  laugh,  to  fight,  to 
weep.  As  I  write,  do  you  know,  it  is  the  grey  of  evening; 
the  house  is  quiet;  everybody  is  out;  the  room  is  getting  a 
little  dark,  and  I  look  rather  wistfully  up  from  the  paper 
with  perhaps  ever  so  little  fancy  that  he  may  come 

in. No?  No  movement.    No  grey  shade,  growing 

more  palpable,  out  of  which  at  last  look  the  well-known 


266  DE  FINIBUS 

eyes.  No,  the  printer  came  and  took  him  away  with  the 
last  page  of  the  proofs.  And  with  the  printer's  boy  did 
the  whole  cortege  of  ghosts  flit  away,  invisible!  Ha! 
stay !  what  is  this?  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace!  The 
door  opens,  and  a  dark  form  —  enters,  bearing  a  black 
—  a  black  suit  of  clothes.  It  is  John.  He  says  it  is  time 
to  dress  for  dinner. 

Every  man  who  has  had  his  German  tutor,  and  has 
been  coached  through  the  famous  '  Faust '  of  Goethe 
(thou  wert  my  instructor,  good  old  Weissenborn,  and 
these  eyes  beheld  the  great  master  himself  in  dear  little 
Weimar  town!)  has  read  those  charming  verses  which 
are  prefixed  to  the  drama,  in  which  the  poet  reverts  to 
the  time  when  his  work  was  first  composed,  and  recalls 
the  friends  now  departed,  who  once  listened  to  his  song. 
The  dear  shadows  rise  up  around  him,  he  says;  he  lives 
in  the  past  again.  It  is  to-day  which  appears  vague  and 
visionary.  We  humbler  writers  cannot  create  Fausts,  or 
raise  up  monumental  works  that  shall  endure  for  all 
ages;  but  our  books  are  diaries,  in  which  our  own  feel- 
ings must  of  necessity  be  set  down.  As  we  look  to  the 
page  written  last  month,  or  ten  years  ago,  we  remember 
the  day  and  its  events;  the  child  ill,  mayhap,  in  the  ad- 
joining room,  and  the  doubts  and  fears  which  racked  the 
brain  as  it  still  pursued  its  work;  the  dear  old  friend  who 
read  the  commencement  of  the  tale,  and  whose  gentle 
hand  shall  be  laid  in  ours  no  more.  I  own  for  my  part 
that,  in  reading  pages  which  this  hand  penned  formerly, 
I  often  lose  sight  of  the  text  under  my  eyes.  It  is  not 
the  words  I  see;  but  that  past  day;  that  bygone  page  of 
life's  history;  that  tragedy,  comedy  it  may  be,  which  our 
little  home-company  was  enacting;  that  merry-making 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY   267 

which  we  shared;  that  funeral  which  we  followed;  that 
bitter,  bitter  grief  which  we  buried. 

And,  such  being  the  state  of  my  mind,  I  pray  gentle 
readers  to  deal  kindly  with  their  humble  servant's  mani- 
fold shortcomings,  blunders,  and  slips  of  memory.  As 
sure  as  I  read  a  page  of  my  own  composition,  I  find  a 
fault  or  two,  half-a-dozen.  Jones  is  called  Brown. 
Brown,  who  is  dead,  is  brought  to  life.  Aghast,  and 
months  after  the  number  was  printed,  I  saw  that  I  had 
called  Philip  Firmin,  Clive  Newcome.  Now  Clive  New- 
come  is  the  hero  of  another  story  by  the  reader's  most 
obedient  writer.  The  two  men  are  as  different  in  my 
mind's  eye,  as  —  as  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr.  Disraeli, 
let  us  say.  But  there  is  that  blunder  at  page  990,  line  76, 
volume  84  of  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  and  it  is  past  mend- 
ing; and  I  wish  in  my  life  I  had  made  no  worse  blunders 
or  errors  than  that  which  is  hereby  acknowledged. 

Another  Finis  written.  Another  mile-stone  passed  on 
this  journey  from  birth  to  the  next  world!  Sure  it  is  a 
subject  for  solemn  cogitation.  Shall  we  continue  this 
story-telling  business  and  be  voluble  to  the  end  of  our 
age!  Will  it  not  be  presently  time,  O  prattler,  to  hold 
your  tongue,  and  let  younger  people  speak?  I  have  a 
friend,  a  painter,  who,  like  other  persons  who  shall  be 
nameless,  is  growing  old.  He  has  never  painted  with 
such  laborious  finish  as  his  works  now  show.  This  mas- 
ter is  still  the  most  humble  and  diligent  of  scholars.  Of 
Art,  his  mistress,  he  is  always  an  eager,  reverent  pupil. 
In  his  calling,  in  yours,  in  mine,  industry  and  humility 
will  help  and  comfort  us.  A  word  with  you.  In  a  pretty 
large  experience  I  have  not  found  the  men  who  write 
books  superior  in  wit  or  learning  to  those  who  don't 
write  at  all.   In  regard  of  mere  information,  non- writers 


268  DE  FINIBUS 

must  often  be  superior  to  writers.  You  don't  expect  a 
lawyer  in  full  practice  to  be  conversant  with  all  kinds  of 
literature;  he  is  too  busy  with  his  law;  and  so  a  writer  is 
commonly  too  busy  with  his  own  books  to  be  able  to 
bestow  attention  on  the  works  of  other  people.  After  a 
day's  work  (in  which  I  have  been  depicting,  let  us  say, 
the  agonies  of  Louisa  on  parting  with  the  Captain,  or 
the  atrocious  behaviour  of  the  wicked  Marquis  to  Lady 
Emily)  I  march  to  the  Club,  proposing  to  improve  my 
mind  and  keep  myself  '  posted  up,'  as  the  Americans 
phrase  it,  in  the  literature  of  the  day.  And  what  hap- 
pens ?  Given  a  walk  after  luncheon,  a  pleasing  book, 
and  a  most  comfortable  arm-chair  by  the  fire,  and  you 
know  the  rest.  A  doze  ensues.  Pleasing  book  drops  sud- 
denly, is  picked  up  once  with  an  air  of  some  confusion,  is 
laid  presently  softly  in  lap:  head  falls  on  comfortable 
arm-chair  cushion;  eyes  close:  soft  nasal  music  is  heard. 
Am  I  telling  Club  secrets?  Of  afternoons,  after  lunch,  I 
say,  scores  of  sensible  fogies  have  a  doze.  Perhaps  I 
have  fallen  asleep  over  that  very  book  to  which  '  Finis  ' 
has  just  been  written.  '  And  if  the  writer  sleeps,  what 
happens  to  the  readers  ? '  says  Jones,  coming  down  upon 
me  with  his  lightning  wit.  What?  you  did  sleep  over  it? 
And  a  very  good  thing  too.  These  eyes  have  more  than 
once  seen  a  friend  dozing  over  pages  which  this  hand  has 
written.  There  is  a  vignette  somewhere  in  one  of  my 
books  of  a  friend  so  caught  napping  with  '  Pendennis,' 
or  the  '  Newcomes,'  in  his  lap;  and  if  a  writer  can  give 
you  a  sweet,  soothing,  harmless  sleep,  has  he  not  done 
you  a  kindness?  So  is  the  author  who  excites  and  in- 
terests you  worthy  of  your  thanks  and  benedictions.  I 
am  troubled  with  fever  and  ague,  that  seize  me  at  odd 
intervals  and  prostrate  me  for  a  day.   There  is  cold  fit, 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY    269 

for  which,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  hot  brandy-and-water 
is  prescribed;  and  this  induces  hot  fit,  and  so  on.  In  one 
or  two  of  these  fits  I  have  read  novels  with  the  most 
fearful  contentment  of  mind.  Once  on  the  Mississippi, 
it  was  my  dearly  beloved  'Jacob  Faithful':  once,  at 
Frankfort  O.  M.,  the  delightful  '  Vingt  Ans  Apres  '  of 
Monsieur  Dumas:  once,  at  Tunbridge  Wells,  the  thrill- 
ing 'Woman  in  White':  and  these  books  gave  me 
amusement  from  morning  till  sunset.  I  remember  those 
ague  fits  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  and  gratitude. 
Think  of  a  whole  day  in  bed,  and  a  good  novel  for  a 
companion!  No  cares:  no  remorse  about  idleness:  no 
visitors:  and  the  Woman  in  White  or  the  Chevalier 
d'Artagnan  to  tell  me  stories  from  dawn  to  night! 
'  Please,  ma'am,  my  master's  compliments,  and  can  he 
have  the  third  volume?  '  (This  message  was  sent  to  an 
astonished  friend  and  neighbour  who  lent  me,  volume 
by  volume,  the  '  W.  in  W.')  How  do  you  like  your 
novels?  I  like  mine  strong, '  hot  with,'  and  no  mistake; 
no  love-making:  no  observations  about  society:  little 
dialogue,  except  where  the  characters  are  bullying  each 
other:  plenty  of  fighting:  and  a  villain  in  the  cupboard, 
who  is  to  suffer  tortures  just  before  Finis.  I  don't  like 
your  melancholy  Finis.  I  never  read  the  history  of  a 
consumptive  heroine  twice.  If  I  might  give  a  short  hint 
to  an  impartial  writer  (as  the  Examiner  used  to  say  in 
old  days),  it  would  be  to  act,  not  a.  la  mode  le  pays  de 
Pole  (I  think  that  was  the  phraseology)  but  always  to 
give  quarter.  In  the  story  of  Philip,  just  come  to  an  end, 
I  have  the  permission  of  the  author  to  state  that  he  was 
going  to  drown  the  two  villains  of  the  piece  —  a  certain 

Doctor  F and  a  certain  Mr.  T.  H on  board  the 

'  President,'  or  some  other  tragic  ship  —  but  you  see  I 


270  DE  FINIBUS 

relented.  I  pictured  to  myself  Firmin's  ghastly  face 
amid  the  crowd  of  shuddering  people  on  that  reeling 
deck  in  the  lonely  ocean  and  thought,  '  Thou  ghastly 
lying  wretch,  thou  shalt  not  be  drowned;  thou  shalt 
have  a  fever  only;  a  knowledge  of  thy  danger;  and  a 
chance  —  ever  so  small  a  chance  of  repentance.'  I  won- 
der whether  he  did  repent  when  he  found  himself  in  the 
yellow-fever,  in  Virginia?  The  probability  is,  he  fancied 
that  his  son  had  injured  him  very  much,  and  forgave 
him  on  his  death-bed.  Do  you  imagine  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  genuine  right-down  remorse  in  the  world? 
Don't  people  rather  find  excuses  which  make  their 
minds  easy;  endeavour  to  prove  to  themselves  that  they 
have  been  lamentably  belied  and  misunderstood;  and 
try  and  forgive  the  persecutors  who  will  present  that  bill 
when  it  is  due;  and  not  bear  malice  against  the  cruel 
ruffian  who  takes  them  to  the  police-office  for  stealing 
the  spoons?  Years  ago  I  had  a  quarrel  with  a  certain 
well-known  person  (I  believed  a  statement  regarding 
him  which  his  friends  imparted  to  me,  and  which  turned 
out  to  be  quite  incorrect).  To  his  dying  day  that  quarrel 
was  never  quite  made  up.  I  said  to  his  brother,  '  Why 
is  your  brother's  soul  still  dark  against  me?  It  is  I  who 
ought  to  be  angry  and  unforgiving:  for  I  was  in  the 
wrong.'  In  the  region  which  they  now  inhabit  (for 
Finis  has  been  set  to  the  volumes  of  the  lives  of  both 
here  below),  if  they  take  any  cognisance  of  our  squab- 
bles, and  tittle-tattles,  and  gossips  on  earth  here,  I  hope 
they  admit  that  my  little  error  was  not  of  a  nature  un- 
pardonable. If  you  have  never  committed  a  worse,  my 
good  sir,  surely  the  score  against  you  will  not  be  heavy. 
Ha,  dilectissimi  jratresl  It  is  in  regard  of  sins  not  found 
out  that  we  may  say  or  sing  (in  an  undertone  in  a  most 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY    271 

penitent  and  lugubrious  minor  key),  '  Miserere  nobis 
miseris  peccatoribus.' 

Among  the  sins  of  commission  which  novel-writers 
not  seldom  perpetrate,  is  the  sin  of  grandiloquence,  or 
tall-talking,  against  which,  for  my  part,  I  will  offer  up 
a  special  libera  me.  This  is  the  sin  of  schoolmasters, 
governesses,  critics,  sermoners,  and  instructors  of  young 
or  old  people.  Nay  (for  I  am  making  a  clean  breast, 
and  liberating  my  soul),  perhaps  of  all  the  novel-spin- 
ners now  extant,  the  present  speaker  is  the  most  ad- 
dicted to  preaching.  Does  he  not  stop  perpetually  in  his 
story  and  begin  to  preach  to  you?  When  he  ought  to  be 
engaged  with  business,  is  he  not  for  ever  taking  the 
Muse  by  the  sleeve,  and  plaguing  her  with  some  of  his 
cynical  sermons?  I  cry  peccavi  loudly  and  heartily.  I 
tell  you  I  would  like  to  be  able  to  write  a  story  which 
should  show  no  egotism  whatever  —  in  which  there 
should  be  no  reflections,  no  cynicism,  no  vulgarity  (and 
so  forth),  but  an  incident  in  every  other  page,  a  villain, 
a  battle,  a  mystery  in  every  chapter.  I  should  like  to  be 
able  to  feed  a  reader  so  spicily  as  to  leave  him  hungering 
and  thirsting  for  more  at  the  end  of  every  monthly 
meal. 

Alexandre  Dumas  describes  himself,  when  inventing 
the  plan  of  a  work,  as  lying  silent  on  his  back  for  two 
whole  days  on  the  deck  of  a  yacht  in  a  Mediterranean 
port.  At  the  end  of  the  two  days  he  arose  and  called  for 
dinner.  In  those  two  days  he  had  built  his  plot.  He  had 
moulded  a  mighty  clay,  to  be  cast  presently  in  perennial 
brass.  The  chapters,  the  characters,  the  incidents,  the 
combinations  were  all  arranged  in  the  artist's  brain  ere 
he  set  a  pen  to  paper.  My  Pegasus  won't  fly,  so  as  to  let 
me  survey  the  field  below  me.    He  has  no  wings,  he  is 


272  DE  FINIBUS 

blind  of  one  eye  certainly;  he  is  restive,  stubborn,  slow; 
crops  a  hedge  when  he  ought  to  be  galloping,  or  gallops 
when  he  ought  to  be  quiet.  He  never  will  show  off 
when  I  want  him.  Sometimes  he  goes  at  a  pace  which 
surprises  me.  Sometimes,  when  I  most  wish  him  to 
make  the  running,  the  brute  turns  restive,  and  I  am 
obliged  to  let  him  take  his  own  time.  I  wonder  do  other 
novel-writers  experience  this  fatalism?  They  must  go  a 
certain  way,  in  spite  of  themselves.  I  have  been  sur- 
prised at  the  observations  made  by  some  of  my  char- 
acters. It  seems  as  if  an  occult  Power  was  moving  the 
pen.  The  personage  does  or  says  something,  and  I  ask, 
How  the  dickens  did  he  come  to  think  of  that?  Every 
man  has  remarked  in  dreams,  the  vast  dramatic  power 
which  is  sometimes  evinced;  I  won't  say  the  surprising 
power,  for  nothing  does  surprise  you  in  dreams.  But 
those  strange  characters  you  meet  make  instant  obser- 
vations of  which  you  never  can  have  thought  previously. 
In  like  manner,  the  imagination  foretells  things.  We 
spake  anon  of  the  inflated  style  of  some  writers.  What 
also  if  there  is  an  afflated  style  —  when  a  writer  is  like  a 
Pythoness  on  her  oracle  tripod,  and  mighty  words, 
words  which  he  cannot  help,  come  blowing,  and  bellow- 
ing, and  whistling,  and  moaning  through  the  speaking 
pipes  of  his  bodily  organ?  I  have  told  you  it  was  a  very 
queer  shock  to  me  the  other  day  when,  with  a  letter  of 
introduction  in  his  hand,  the  artist's  (not  my)  Philip 
Firmin  walked  into  this  room,  and  sat  down  in  the  chair 
opposite.  In  the  novel  of  '  Pendennis,'  written  ten 
years  ago,  there  is  an  account  of  a  certain  Costigan, 
whom  I  had  invented  (as  I  suppose  authors  invent  their 
personages  out  of  scraps,  heel-taps,  odds  and  ends  of 
characters).    I  was  smoking  in  a  tavern  parlour  one 


WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY    273 

night  —  and  this  Costigan  came  into  the  room  alive  — 
the  very  man: —  the  most  remarkable  resemblance  of 
the  printed  sketches  of  the  man,  of  the  rude  drawings  in 
which  I  had  depicted  him.  He  had  the  same  little  coat, 
the  same  battered  hat,  cocked  on  one  eye,  the  same 
twinkle  in  that  eye.  '  Sir,'  said  I,  knowing  him  to  be  an 
old  friend  whom  I  had  met  in  unknown  regions, '  Sir,'  I 
said,  '  may  I  offer  you  a  glass  of  brandy-and- water?  ' 
'  Bedad,  ye  may,'  says  he,  '  and  Til  sing  ye  a  song  tu.'  Of 
course  he  spoke  with  an  Irish  brogue.  Of  course  he  had 
been  in  the  army.  In  ten  minutes  he  pulled  out  an 
Army  Agent's  account,  whereon  his  name  was  written. 
A  few  months  after  we  read  of  him  in  a  police-court. 
How  had  I  come  to  know  him,  to  divine  him?  Nothing 
shall  convince  me  that  I  have  not  seen  that  man  in  the 
world  of  spirits.  In  the  world  of  spirits  and  water  I 
know  I  did:  but  that  is  a  mere  quibble  of  words.  I  was 
not  surprised  when  he  spoke  in  an  Irish  brogue.  I  had 
had  cognisance  of  him  before  somehow.  Who  has  not 
felt  that  little  shock  which  arises  when  a  person,  a  place, 
some  words  in  a  book  (there  is  always  a  collocation) 
present  themselves  to  you,  and  you  know  that  you  have 
before  met  the  same  person,  words,  scene,  and  so  forth? 
They  used  to  call  the  good  Sir  Walter  the  '  Wizard  of 
the  North.'  What  if  some  writer  should  appear  who  can 
write  so  enchantingly  that  he  shall  be  able  to  call  into 
actual  life  the  people  whom  he  invents?  What  if  Mig- 
non,  and  Margaret,  and  Goetz  von  Berlichingen  are 
alive  now  (though  I  don't  say  they  are  visible),  and  Du- 
gald  Dalgetty  and  Ivanhoe  were  to  step  in  at  that  open 
window  by  the  little  garden  yonder?  Suppose  Uncas 
and  our  noble  old  Leather-stocking  were  to  glide  silently 
in?     Suppose  Athos,  Porthos,  and  Aramis  should  enter 


274  DE  FINIBUS 

with  a  noiseless  swagger,  curling  their  moustaches? 
And  dearest  Amelia  Booth,  on  uncle  Toby's  arm;  and 
Tittlebat  Titmouse,  with  his  hair  dyed  green;  and  all  the 
Crummies  company  of  comedians,  with  the  Gil  Bias 
troop;  and  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley;  and  the  greatest  of  all 
crazy  gentlemen,  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha,  with  his 
blessed  squire?  I  say  to  you,  I  look  rather  wistfully  to- 
wards the  window,  musing  upon  these  people.  Were  any 
of  them  to  enter,  I  think  I  should  not  be  very  much 
frightened.  Dear  old  friends,  what  pleasant  hours  I 
have  had  with  them!  We  do  not  see  each  other  very 
often,  but  when  we  do,  we  are  ever  happy  to  meet.  I 
had  a  capital  half-hour  with  Jacob  Faithful  last  night; 
when  the  last  sheet  was  corrected,  when  '  Finis,'  had 
been  written,  and  the  printer's  boy,  with  the  copy,  was 
safe  in  Green  Arbour  Court. 

So  you  are  gone,  little  printer's  boy,  with  the  last 
scratches  and  corrections  on  the  proof,  and  a  fine 
flourish  by  way  of  Finis  at  the  story's  end.  The  last 
corrections?  I  say  those  last  corrections  seem  never  to 
be  finished.  A  plague  upon  the  weeds!  Every  day,  when 
I  walk  in  my  own  little  literary  garden-plot,  I  spy  some, 
and  should  like  to  have  a  spud,  and  root  them  out. 
Those  idle  words,  neighbour,  are  past  remedy.  That 
turning  back  to  the  old  pages  produces  anything  but 
elation  of  mind.  Would  you  not  pay  a  pretty  fine  to  be 
able  to  cancel  some  of  them?  Oh,  the  sad  old  pages,  the 
dull  old  pages!  Oh,  the  cares,  the  ennui,  the  squabbles, 
the  repetitions,  the  old  conversations  over  and  over 
again.  But  now  and  again  a  kind  thought  is  recalled, 
and  now  and  again  a  dear  memory.  Yet  a  few  chapters 
more,  and  then  the  last:  after  which,  behold  Finis  itself 
comes  to  an  end,  and  the  Infinite  begun. 


IV.  THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE 


DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

GEORGES-LOUIS  LECLERC  DE  BUFFON 

1707-1788 

Buffon  delivered  his  address  on  style  before  the  French  Acad- 
emy on  August  25,  1753.  The  address  is  interesting  not  only 
because  it  is  a  sound  discussion  of  a  difficult  subject,  but 
because  the  author  of  it  was  a  scientist  rather  than  a  man  of 
letters.  It  is  known  to  most  persons  because  of  one  sentence, 
"The  style  is  the  man  himself,"  which  was  in  reality  an  after- 
thought that  BufFon  incorporated  in  the  address  at  some  time 
subsequent  to  his  delivery  of  a  copy  to  the  president  of  the 
Academy,  but  before  he  spoke  on  the  day  of  his  reception. 

The  translation  that  follows  is  based  upon  the  text  edited  by 
Monsieur  Rene  Nollet  (Librairie  Hachette  et  Cie,  Paris,  1905). 
In  making  this  translation  the  editor  has  kept  the  sentence 
divisions  of  the  French  wherever  the  meaning  in  English  has 
not  suffered  too  violently  from  the  numerous  semicolons  and 
colons.  The  essay  has  been  translated  also  by  Professor  Lane 
Cooper,  of  Cornell  University,  in  his  Theories  of  Style  (The 
Macmillan  Company,  New  York). 

Gentlemen: 

In  calling  me  to  a  place  among  you,  you  have  over- 
whelmed me  with  honor;  but  glory  is  a  good  only  in  so 
far  as  one  is  worthy  of  it,  and  I  am  not  convinced  that 
some  essays  written  without  art  and  without  other  orna- 
ment than  that  of  Nature,  should  be  sufficient  title  to 
make  me  dare  take  a  place  among  the  masters  of  art, 
among  the  eminent  men  who  represent  here  the  literary 
splendor  of  France,  and  whose  names,  celebrated  to-day 
among  the  nations  of  the  world,  will  be  heard  from  the 
lips  of  our  remotest  posterity.   In  turning  to  me,  Gentle- 


278  DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

men,  you  have  had  other  motives;  you  have  wished  to 
give  a  new  mark  of  respect  to  the  illustrious  company  to 
which  for  a  long  time  I  have  had  the  honor  of  belonging. 
My  appreciation,  though  thus  shared  by  others,  will  not 
be  less  lively.  But  how  shall  I  perform  the  duty  that  it 
places  upon  me  to-day?  I  have  nothing  to  offer  you, 
Gentlemen,  save  what  is  already  your  own:  some  ideas 
on  style,  which  I  have  drawn  from  your  works.  It  was 
in  reading  you  and  in  admiring  you  that  I  conceived 
them;  it  is  in  submitting  them  to  your  intelligence  that 
I  am  assured  of  their  appreciation. 

In  all  times  there  have  been  men  who  could  rule 
others  by  the  power  of  speech.  Nevertheless,  it  is  only 
in  enlightened  times  that  men  have  written  and  spoken 
well.  True  eloquence  supposes  the  exercise  of  genius 
and  the  cultivation  of  the  mind.  It  is  quite  different 
from  that  natural  facility  of  speaking  which  is  only  a 
talent,  a  quality  accorded  to  all  those  whose  passions  are 
strong,  whose  voices  are  flexible,  and  whose  imagina- 
tions are  quick.  These  men  perceive  vividly,  are  af- 
fected vividly,  and  reveal  emotion  strongly;  and  by  an 
impression  purely  mechanical,  they  transmit  to  others 
their  enthusiasm  and  their  affections.  It  is  body  speak- 
ing to  body;  all  the  movements,  all  the  gestures,  con- 
tribute alike  in  serving  this  end.  What  is  necessary  in 
order  to  arouse  the  multitude  and  lead  it  on?  What  is 
necessary  in  order  to  agitate  most  other  men  and  per- 
suade them?  A  tone  vehement  and  pathetic,  gestures 
expressive  and  frequent,  and  words  rapid  and  ringing. 
But  for  the  small  number  whose  heads  are  steady,  whose 
taste  is  delicate,  and  whose  feeling  is  refined,  and  who, 
like  you,  Gentlemen,  attach  little  importance  to  tune- 
ful movement,  gestures,  and  the  vain  sound  of  words,  it 


COMTE  DE  BUFFON  279 

is  necessary  to  have  substance,  thoughts,  arguments; 
and  it  is  necessary  to  know  how  to  present  them,  to 
shade  them,  to  order  them:  it  is  not  enough  to  strike  the 
ear  and  hold  the  eye;  one  must  influence  the  soul  and 
touch  the  heart  by  addressing  the  mind. 

Style  is  but  the  order  and  the  movement  that  one 
gives    to    one's    thoughts.     If   a    writer    connects    his  1 
thoughts  closely,  if  he  presses  them  together,  the  style  \ 
will  be  firm,  nervous,  and  concise;  if  he  lets  them  follow 
one  another  leisurely  and  at  the  suggestion  of  the  words, 
however  elegant  these  may  be,  the  style  will  be  diffuse,  - 
incoherent,  and  languid. 

But,  before  seeking  the  order  in  which  to  present 
thoughts,  the  writer  must  form  another  more  general 
and  more  rigid  order  where  only  large  views  and  prin- 
cipal ideas  should  enter.  It  is  by  fixing  their  places  in 
this  preliminary  plan  that  he  circumscribes  the  subject 
and  comes  to  know  its  extent;  it  is  by  recalling  con- 
stantly these  first  limits  that  he  will  determine  the  exact 
intervals  which  separate  the  principal  ideas,  and  will 
develop  those  accessory  and  intermediary  ideas  which 
shall  serve  to  round  out  the  original  conception.  By 
force  of  genius  he  will  visualize  all  of  the  general  and 
particular  ideas  in  their  true  perspective;  by  a  great 
subtlety  of  discernment,  he  will  distinguish  the  thoughts 
that  are  sterile  from  those  that  are  fertile;  by  a  sagacity 
born  of  long  practice  in  writing,  he  will  perceive  in  ad- 
vance the  product  of  all  of  these  operations  of  the  mind. 
If  a  subject  be  in  any  degree  vast  or  complex,  it  is  very 
seldom  that  one  can  encompass  it  at  a  single  view,  or 
penetrate  it  completely  by  a  single  and  first  effort  of 
genius;  and  it  is  seldom,  even  after  much  reflection,  that 
one  can  seize  upon  all  the  relations.    One  cannot,  then, 


280  DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

devote  himself  too  completely  to  this  process;  it  is,  in 
truth,  the  only  means  of  establishing,  of  extending,  and 
of  elevating  one's  thoughts:  the  more  substance  and 
force  one  gives  to  them  by  meditation,  the  easier  it  will 
be  afterward  to  realize  them  through  expression. 

This  plan  is  not  indeed  the  style,  but  it  is  the  founda- 
;'  tion;  it  supports  the  style,  directs  it,  governs  its  move- 
I  ment,  and  subjects  it  to  law;  without  it,  the  best  writer 
will  lose  his  way,  and  his  pen  will  run  on  unguided  and 
by  hazard  will  make  uncertain  strokes  and  incongruous 
figures.  However  brilliant  be  the  colors  he  employs, 
whatever  beauties  he  may  scatter  among  the  details,  if 
the  ensemble  jars  or  does  not  make  itself  sufficiently 
felt,  the  work  will  not  be  constructed;  and  in  admiring 
the  brilliancy  of  the  author,  one  must  suspect  that  he  is 
lacking  in  genius.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  those  who 
write  as  they  speak,  though  they  speak  very  well,  write 
poorly;  that  those  who  abandon  themselves  to  the  first 
heat  of  their  imagination  strike  a  tone  that  they  cannot 
sustain;  that  those  who  fear  to  lose  some  isolated,  fugi- 
tive thoughts,  and  who  write  at  different  times  these  de- 
tached fragments,  cannot  unite  them  without  forced 
transitions;  that,  in  a  word,  there  are  so  many  works 
made  mosaic-fashion  and  so  few  cast  in  a  single  mould. 
Nevertheless,  every  subject  is  a  unit;  and  however 
vast  it  may  be,  it  can  be  comprehended  in  a  single 
treatise.  Interruptions,  pauses,  and  sections  should  not 
be  employed  except  when  one  treats  different  subjects, 
or  when,  having  to  discuss  great  matters  that  are  knotty 
and  disparate,  the  march  of  genius  finds  itself  inter- 
rupted by  the  multiplicity  of  obstacles,  and  constrained 
by  force  of  circumstances:  otherwise,  the  numerous 
divisions,  far  from  rendering  a  work  more  solid,  destroy 


COMTE  DE  BUFFON  281 

the  ensemble;  the  book  appears  to  the  eye  to  be  clearer, 
but  the  design  of  the  author  remains  obscure;  the  im- 
pression on  the  reader's  mind,  or  even  on  his  feelings, 
can  be  made  only  by  the  continuity  of  the  thread,  by 
the  harmonious  dependence  of  ideas,  by  a  successive 
development,  a  sustained  gradation,  a  uniform  move- 
ment which  every  interruption  destroys,  or  at  least 
enfeebles. 

Why  are  works  of  Nature  so  perfect?  It  is  because 
each  work  is  a  whole,  and  because  Nature  works  accord- 
ing to  a  plan  from  which  she  never  departs;  she  prepares 
in  silence  the  germs  of  her  productions;  she  sketches  in  a 
single  act  the  original  form  of  every  living  being;  she  de- 
velops this,  she  perfects  it,  by  a  continuous  movement 
and  in  a  time  prescribed.  The  resulting  production 
astonishes  us;  but  it  is  the  divine  imprint  it  bears  that 
ought  to  strike  us.  The  human  mind  can  create  nothing; 
it  can  produce  only  after  it  has  been  fertilized  by  expe- 
rience and  meditation;  its  acquisitions  are  the  germs  of 
its  productions:  but,  if  it  imitates  Nature  in  its  pro- 
cedure and  in  its  labor,  if  it  lifts  itself  up  by  contempla- 
tion to  the  most  sublime  truths;  if  it  reunites  them,  if  it 
binds  them  together,  if  by  reflection  it  forms  of  them  a 
systematic  whole,  it  will  establish  on  unshakable  foun- 
dations monuments  that  shall  prove  immortal. 

It  is  from  lack  of  plan,  from  lack  of  reflection  on  his 
purpose,  that  a  man  of  sheer  intelligence  finds  himself 
embarrassed  and  does  not  know  at  what  point  to  begin 
to  write.  He  perceives,  all  at  the  same  time,  a  great 
number  of  ideas;  and,  since  he  has  neither  compared 
them  nor  subordinated  them,  nothing  leads  him  to  pre- 
fer any  of  them  to  the  others;  so  he  remains  in  per- 
plexity. 


282  DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

But  when  he  has  made  a  plan,  when  once  he  has 
brought  together  and  put  in  order  all  the  thoughts  es- 
sential to  his  subject,  he  will  see  easily  the  instant  when 
he  ought  to  take  up  his  pen,  he  will  feel  with  certainty 
that  his  mind  is  ready  to  bring  forth,  he  will  be  pressed 
to  give  birth  to  his  ideas,  and  will  find  only  pleasure  in 
writing:  his  ideas  will  succeed  each  other  easily,  and 
the  style  will  be  natural  and  ready;  the  warmth  born  of 
this  pleasure  will  diffuse  itself  everywhere  and  give  life 
to  each  expression;  the  animation  will  become  higher 
and  higher;  the  tone  will  become  exalted;  objects  will 
take  on  color;  and  feeling  blended  with  intellect  will  in- 
crease the  warm  glow,  will  carry  it  farther,  will  make  it 
pass  from  that  which  one  says  to  that  which  one  is  about 
to  say,  and  the  style  will  become  interesting  and 
luminous. 

Nothing  is  more  directly  opposed  to  this  warmth  than 
the  desire  to  fill  one's  work  with  brilliant  strokes;  noth- 
ing is  more  contrary  to  the  light  which  should  form  the 
center  and  diffuse  itself  uniformly  in  any  writing,  than 
the  sparks  which  one  can  strike  only  by  dashing  the 
words  against  one  another,  and  which  dazzle  us  during 
a  few  moments,  only  to  leave  us  in  darkness  afterward. 
These  are  thoughts  which  sparkle  only  by  contrast:  by 
means  of  them  one  presents  only  a  single  side  of  an  ob- 
ject, and  puts  all  the  other  sides  in  shadow;  and  ordi- 
narily the  side  chosen  is  a  point,  an  angle,  on  which  one 
exercises  the  mind  with  the  greater  facility  the  farther 
one  departs  from  the  important  sides  on  which  good 
sense  is  accustomed  to  consider  things. 

Again,  nothing  is  more  opposed  to  true  eloquence 
than  the  employment  of  these  over-refined  thoughts  and 
the  searching  out  of  ideas  which  are  trifling,  slender,  and 


COMTE  DE  BUFFON  283 

without  substance,  and  which,  like  leaves  of  beaten 
metal,  take  on  brilliancy  only  as  they  lose  solidity.  And, 
the  more  of  this  thin  and  sparkling  wit  one  puts  in  a 
piece  of  writing,  the  less  there  will  be  of  fibre,  of  intelli- 
gence, of  warmth,  and  of  style;  unless,  of  course,  this  wit 
is  itself  the  heart  of  the  subject,  and  the  writer  has  no 
other  object  than  pleasantry:  then  the  art  of  expressing 
trifles  becomes  more  difficult,  perhaps,  than  the  art  of 
expressing  great  things. 

Noting  is  more  opposed  to  the  beauty  born  of  nat- 
uralness than  the  care  so  often  taken  to  express  or- 
dinary, common  matters  in  an  unusual  or  pompous 
manner;  nothing  degrades  a  writer  more.  Far  from 
admiring  him,  one  pities  him  for  having  spent  so  much 
time  in  making  new  combinations  of  syllables  only  to 
say  what  everybody  else  says.  This  is  a  fault  of  minds 
that  are  cultivated  but  sterile;  they  have  an  abundance 
of  words,  but  no  ideas;  they  labor  on  their  words,  there- 
fore, and  imagine  that  they  have  woven  together  some 
ideas  when  they  have  only  arranged  some  sentences,  and 
that  they  have  refined  the  language  when  in  truth  they 
have  corrupted  it  by  perverting  the  usual  significa- 
tions. A  style  ought  to  engrave  thoughts;  but  they 
know  only  how  to  trace  out  words. 

To  write  well,  then,  one  must  possess  a  complete 
mastery  of  the  subject-matter;  one  must  reflect  upon  it 
sufficiently  to  see  clearly  the  order  of  the  thoughts,  and 
to  put  them  in  sequence,  in  a  continuous  chain,  of  which 
each  part  represents  an  idea;  and  when  one  has  taken  up 
the  pen,  one  must  direct  it  according  to  this  outline, 
without  making  digression,  without  dwelling  dispro- 
portionately on  any  point,  and  without  developing  any 
other  movement  than  that  which  will  be  determined  by 


284  DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

the  space  to  be  traversed.  It  is  just  this  that  constitutes 
severity  in  style;  it  is  this  also  that  makes  for  unity  and 
regulates  the  rapidity  of  movement;  it  is  this  alone, 
moreover,  that  will  suffice  to  render  a  style  precise  and 
simple,  even  and  clear,  lively  and  coherent.  If  to  this 
first  rule,  which  is  based  upon  the  dictates  of  genius,  one 
join  discrimination  and  taste,  scrupulousness  in  the 
choice  of  expression,  care  in  the  naming  of  things  only 
by  the  most  general  terms,  the  style  will  have  nobility. 
If  one  add,  further,  a  distrust  of  his  first  inspiration,  a 
disdain  for  that  which  is  merely  brilliant,  and  a  con- 
stant aversion  for  the  equivocal  and  the  whimsical,  the 
style  will  have  gravity  and  even  majesty.  In  brief,  if  an 
author  writes  as  he  thinks,  if  he  is  himself  convinced  of 
that  which  he  wishes  to  establish  in  the  minds  of  others, 
this  good  faith  with  himself,  which  makes  for  respect 
toward  others  and  for  truthfulness  of  style,  will  enable 
him  to  produce  his  entire  intended  effect  —  provided 
that  this  inner  conviction  does  not  reflect  itself  with  too 
great  enthusiasm  and  that  there  is  everywhere  more 
candor  than  confidence,  more  reason  than  warmth. 

It  is  thus,  Gentlemen,  it  seems  in  reading  you,  that 
you  would  speak  to  me,  that  you  would  instruct  me. 
My  soul,  which  has  received  with  avidity  these  oracles 
of  wisdom,  would  take  flight  and  rise  to  your  heights; 
vain  effort !  Rules,  you  would  add,  cannot  take  the  place 
of  genius;  if  that  be  wanting,  rules  will  be  useless.  To 
write  well, —  it  is  at  once  to  think  well,  to  experience 
well,  and  to  express  well;  it  is  to  have  at  once  intelli- 
gence, sensibility,  and  taste.  Style  supposes  the  blend- 
ing and  the  exercise  of  all  the  intellectual  powers.  Ideas 
alone  form  its  basis;  the  harmony  of  words  is  a  mere 
accessory  dependent  upon  the  senses.    All  that  is  re- 


COMTE  DE  BUFFON  285 

quired  is  to  have  an  ear  for  detecting  dissonances,  to 
have  exercised  it  and  perfected  it  by  the  reading  of  poets 
and  orators,  and  one  will  be  led  mechanically  to  imitate 
poetical  cadence  and  turns  of  oratory.  But  imitation 
never  created  anything;  hence  this  harmony  of  words 
forms  neither  the  basis  nor  the  tone  of  style,  and  is  often 
found  in  writings  that  are  void  of  ideas. 

Tone  is  merely  the  agreement  of  style  and  subject- 
matter.  It  should  never  be  forced;  it  springs  naturally 
from  the  character  of  the  material,  and  depends  in  large 
measure  upon  the  point  of  generalization  to  which  one 
has  advanced.  If  one  rises  to  the  most  general  ideas, 
and  if  the  purpose  itself  is  great,  the  tone  will  be  seen  to 
lift  itself  to  the  same  height;  and  if  in  sustaining  the 
tone  at  this  height,  one's  genius  is  strong  enough  to  give 
to  each  object  a  strong  light,  if  one  can  add  beauty  of 
coloring  to  energy  of  design,  if  one  can,  in  a  word,  repre- 
sent each  idea  by  an  image  that  is  vivid  and  well-de- 
fined, and  form  of  each  group  of  ideas  a  picture  that  is 
harmonious  and  animated,  the  tone  will  be  not  only 
elevated,  but  sublime. 

Here,  Gentlemen,  the  application  would  count  for 
more  than  the  rule;  examples  would  instruct  better 
than  precept;  but  since  I  am  not  permitted  to  quote  the 
sublime  passages  which  have  so  often  transported  me  in 
reading  your  works,  I  am  obliged  to  limit  myself  to  re- 
flections. The  well-written  works  are  the  only  ones  that 
will  pass  down  to  posterity:  quantity  of  information, 
singularity  of  facts,  novelty  of  discoveries  even,  are  not 
sure  guaranties  of  immortality.  If  the  works  contain- 
ing these  center  around  small  purposes,  if  they  are 
written  without  taste,  without  nobility,  and  without 
genius,  they  will  perish.    Inasmuch  as  the  knowledge, 


286  DISCOURSE  ON  STYLE 

the  facts,  and  the  discoveries  are  easily  detached,  they 
pass  on  to  others,  and  they  even  gain  when  used  by  more 
skillful  hands.  These  things  are  external  to  the  man; 
the  style  is  the  man  himself.  The  style,  then,  can 
neither  be  detached,  nor  transferred,  nor  altered:  if  it 
is  lofty,  noble,  sublime,  the  author  will  be  admired 
equally  in  all  times;  for  it  is  the  truth  alone  that  is 
durable,  even  eternal.  A  beautiful  style  is  such,  in  fact, 
only  by  the  infinite  number  of  truths  that  it  presents. 
All  the  intellectual  beauties  to  be  found  in  it,  all  the 
harmonies  of  which  it  is  composed,  are  so  many  truths 
not  less  useful  —  perhaps  even  more  precious  for  the 
human  spirit —  than  those  which  form  the  very  heart 
of  the  subject. 

The  sublime  is  to  be  found  only  in  great  subjects. 
Poetry,  history,  and  philosophy  all  have  the  same  sub- 
ject-matter, and  a  very  great  subject-matter,  —  man 
and  Nature.  Philosophy  describes  and  portrays  Nature; 
poetry  depicts  and  embellishes  it:  poetry  also  depicts 
men,  exalts  them,  magnifies  them,  and  creates  heroes 
and  gods.  History  depicts  man  only,  and  depicts  him 
as  he  is;  so  the  tone  of  the  historian  will  become  sublime 
only  when  he  portrays  the  greatest  men,  when  he  sets 
forth  the  greatest  actions,  the  greatest  movements,  the 
greatest  revolutions;  with  these  exceptions,  it  will  suffice 
if  he  be  majestic  and  grave.  The  tone  of  the  philosopher 
will  become  sublime  whenever  he  is  to  speak  of  the  laws 
of  Nature,  of  beings  in  general,  of  space,  of  matter,  of 
movement  and  time,  of  the  soul,  of  the  human  mind,  of 
the  feelings,  of  the  passions;  in  all  other  instances,  it  will 
suffice  if  he  be  noble  and  elevated.  But  the  tone  of  the 
orator  and  the  poet,  inasmuch  as  their  subject  is  lofty, 
ought  always  to  be  sublime,  because  they  may  add  to 


COMTE  DE  BUFFON  287 

the  grandeur  of  their  subject  as  much  color,  as  much 
movement,  as  much  illusion  as  they  choose;  and  since 
they  must  always  portray  and  exalt  objects,  they  ought 
always,  in  consequence,  to  employ  all  the  force  and  dis- 
play all  the  extent  of  their  genius. 


THE  SINEWS  OF  STYLE  i 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

1817-1862 

A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merritnack  Rivers,  from  which 
this  passage  is  taken,  was  originally  published  by  Thoreau,  at 
his  own  expense,  in  1849  —  ten  years  after  he  had  made  his 
notes  on  the  trip  (August  31-September  6,  1839).  It  scarcely 
need  be  pointed  out  that  his  own  style  possesses  the  compact 
strength  and  the  atmosphere  of  out-of-doors  for  which  he 
pleads. 

ENOUGH  has  been  said  in  these  days  of  the  charm 
of  fluent  writing.  We  hear  it  complained  of  some 
works  of  genius  that  they  have  fine  thoughts,  but  are 
irregular  and  have  no  flow.  But  even  the  mountain 
peaks  in  the  horizon  are,  to  the  eye  of  science,  parts  of 
one  range.  We  should  consider  that  the  flow  of  thought 
is  more  like  a  tidal  wave  than  a  prone  river,  and  is  the 
result  of  a  celestial  influence,  not  of  any  declivity  in  its 
channel.  The  river  flows  because  it  runs  down  hill,  and 
flows  the  faster,  the  faster  it  descends.  The  reader  who 
expects  to  float  downstream  for  the  whole  voyage  may 
well  complain  of  nauseating  swells  and  choppings  of  the 
sea  when  his  frail  shore  craft  gets  amidst  the  billows  of 
the  ocean  stream,  which  flows  as  much  to  sun  and  moon 
as  lesser  streams  to  it.  But  if  we  would  appreciate  the 
flow  that  is  in  these  books,  we  must  expect  to  feel  it  rise 
from  the  page  like  an  exhalation,  and  wash  away  our 
critical  brains  like  burr  millstones,  flowing  to  higher 
levels  above  and  behind  ourselves.    There  is  many  a 

1  Printed   by  permission  of,   and   by  special  arrangement  with, 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  289 

book  which  ripples  on  like  a  freshet,  and  flows  as  glibly 
as  a  mill-stream  sucking  under  a  causeway;  and  when 
their  authors  are  in  the  full  tide  of  their  discourse,  Py- 
thagoras and  Plato  and  Jamblichus  halt  beside  them. 
Their  long,  stringy,  slimy  sentences  are  of  that  consist- 
ency that  they  naturally  flow  and  run  together.  They 
read  as  if  written  for  military  men,  for  men  of  business, 
there  is  such  a  dispatch  in  them.  Compared  with  these, 
the  grave  thinkers  and  philosophers  seem  not  to  have 
got  their  swaddling-clothes  off;  they  are  slower  than  a 
Roman  army  in  its  march,  the  rear  camping  to-night 
where  the  van  camped  last  night.  The  wise  Jamblichus 
eddies  and  gleams  like  a  watery  slough. 

How  many  thousands  never  heard  the  name 
Of  Sidney,  or  of  Spenser,  or  their  books! 

And  yet  brave  fellows,  and  presume  of  fame, 
And  seem  to  bear  down  all  the  world  with  looks! 

The  ready  writer  seizes  the  pen  and  shouts  "Forward! 
Alamo  and  Fanning!  "  and  after  rolls  the  tide  of  war. 
The  very  walls  and  fences  seem  to  travel.  But  the  most 
rapid  trot  is  no  flow  after  all;  and  thither,  reader,  you 
and  I,  at  least,  will  not  follow. 

A  perfectly  healthy  sentence,  it  is  true,  is  extremely 
rare.  For  the  most  part  we  miss  the  hue  and  fragrance 
of  the  thought;  as  if  we  could  be  satisfied  with  the  dews 
of  the  morning  or  evening  without  their  colors,  or  the 
heavens  without  their  azure.  The  most  attractive  sen- 
tences are,  perhaps,  not  the  wisest,  but  the  surest  and 
roundest.  They  are  spoken  firmly  and  conclusively,  as 
if  the  speaker  had  a  right  to  know  what  he  says,  and  if 
not  wise,  they  have  at  least  been  well  learned.  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  might  well  be  studied,  if  only  for  the 
excellence  of  his  style,  for  he  is  remarkable  in  the  midst 


290  THE  SINEWS  OF  STYLE 

of  so  many  masters.  There  is  a  natural  emphasis  in  his 
style,  like  a  man's  tread,  and  a  breathing  space  between 
the  sentences,  which  the  best  of  modern  writing  does  not 
furnish.  His  chapters  are  like  English  parks,  or  say 
rather  like  a  Western  forest,  where  the  larger  growth 
keeps  down  the  underwood,  and  one  may  ride  on  horse- 
back through  the  openings.  All  the  distinguished 
writers  of  that  period  possess  a  greater  vigor  and  nat- 
uralness than  the  more  modern,  —  for  it  is  allowed  to 
slander  our  own  time,  —  and  when  we  read  a  quotation 
from  one  of  them  in  the  midst  of  a  modern  author,  we 
seem  to  have  come  suddenly  upon  a  greener  ground,  a 
greater  depth  and  strength  of  soil.  It  is  as  if  a  green 
bough  were  laid  across  the  page,  and  we  are  refreshed  as 
by  the  sight  of  fresh  grass  in  midwinter  or  early  spring. 
You  have  constantly  the  warrant  of  life  and  experience 
in  what  you  read.  The  little  that  is  said  is  eked  out  by 
implication  of  the  much  that  was  done.  The  sentences 
are  verdurous  and  blooming  as  evergreen  and  flowers, 
because  they  are  rooted  in  fact  and  experience,  but  our 
false  and  florid  sentences  have  only  the  tints  of  flowers 
without  their  sap  or  roots.  All  men  are  really  most  at- 
tracted by  the  beauty  of  plain  speech,  and  they  even 
write  in  a  florid  style  in  imitation  of  this.  They  prefer 
to  be  misunderstood  rather  than  to  come  short  of  its 
exuberance.  Hussein  EfFendi  praised  the  epistolary 
style  of  Ibrahim  Pasha  to  the  French  traveler  Botta, 
because  of  "the  difficulty  of  understanding  it;  there 
was,"  he  said,  "but  one  person  at  Jidda  who  was  ca- 
pable of  understanding  and  explaining  the  Pasha's  cor- 
respondence." A  man's  whole  life  is  taxed  for  the  least 
thing  well  done.  It  is  its  net  result.  Every  sentence  is 
the  result  of  a  long  probation.   Where  shall  we  look  for 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  291 

standard  English  but  to  the  words  of  a  standard  man? 
The  word  which  is  best  said  came  nearest  to  not  being 
spoken  at  all,  for  it  is  cousin  to  a  deed  which  the  speaker 
could  have  better  done.  Nay,  almost  it  must  have 
taken  the  place  of  a  deed  by  some  urgent  necessity, 
even  by  some  misfortune,  so  that  the  truest  writer  will 
be  some  captive  knight,  after  all.  And  perhaps  the  fates 
had  such  a  design,  when,  having  stored  Raleigh  so 
richly  with  the  substance  of  life  and  experience,  they 
made  him  a  fast  prisoner,  and  compelled  him  to  make 
his  words  his  deeds,  and  transfer  to  his  expression  the 
emphasis  and  sincerity  of  his  action. 

Men  have  a  respect  for  scholarship  and  learning 
greatly  out  of  proportion  to  the  use  they  commonly 
serve.  We  are  amused  to  read  how  Ben  Jonson  engaged 
that  the  dull  masks  with  which  the  royal  family  and 
nobility  were  to  be  entertained  should  be  "grounded 
upon  antiquity  and  solid  learning."  Can  there  be  any 
greater  reproach  than  an  idle  learning?  Learn  to  split 
wood,  at  least.  The  necessity  of  labor  and  conversation 
with  many  men  and  things,  to  the  scholar  is  rarely  well 
remembered;  steady  labor  with  the  hands,  which  en- 
grosses the  attention  also,  is  unquestionably  the  best 
method  of  removing  palaver  and  sentimentality  out  of 
one's  style,  both  of  speaking  and  writing.  If  he  has 
worked  hard  from  morning  till  night,  though  he  may 
have  grieved  that  he  could  not  be  watching  the  train  of 
his  thoughts  during  that  time,  yet  the  few  hasty  lines 
which  at  evening  record  his  day's  experience  will  be 
more  musical  and  true  than  his  freest  but  idle  fancy 
could  have  furnished.  Surely  the  writer  is  to  address  a 
world  of  laborers,  and  such  therefore  must  be  his  own 
discipline.   He  will  not  idly  dance  at  his  work  who  has 


i9i  THE  SINEWS  OF  STYLE 

wood  to  cut  and  cord  before  nightfall  in  the  short  days 
of  winter;  but  every  stroke  will  be  husbanded,  and  ring 
soberly  through  the  wood;  and  so  will  the  strokes  of  that 
scholar's  pen,  which  at  evening  record  the  story  of  the 
day,  ring  soberly,  yet  cheerily,  on  the  ear  of  the  reader, 
long  after  the  echoes  of  his  axe  have  died  away.  The 
scholar  may  be  sure  that  he  writes  the  tougher  truth  for 
the  calluses  on  his  palms.  They  give  firmness  to  the 
sentence.  Indeed,  the  mind  never  makes  a  great  and 
successful  effort,  without  a  corresponding  energy  of  the 
body.  We  are  often  struck  by  the  force  and  precision  of 
style  to  which  hard-working  men,unpracticed  in  writing, 
easily  attain  when  required  to  make  the  effort.  As  if 
plainness  and  vigor  and  sincerity,  the  ornaments  of  style, 
were  better  learned  on  the  farm  and  in  the  workshop 
than  in  the  schools.  The  sentences  written  by  such  rude 
hands  are  nervous  and  tough,  like  hardened  thongs,  the 
sinews  of  the  deer,  or  the  roots  of  the  pine.  As  for  the 
graces  of  expression,  a  great  thought  is  never  found  in  a 
mean  dress;  but  though  it  proceed  from  the  lips  of  the 
Wolofs,  the  nine  Muses  and  the  three  Graces  will  have 
conspired  to  clothe  it  in  fit  phrase.  Its  education  has 
always  been  liberal,  and  its  implied  wit  can  endow  a 
college.  The  world,  which  the  Greeks  called  Beauty, 
has  been  made  such  by  being  gradually  divested  of 
every  ornament  which  was  not  fitted  to  endure.  The 
Sibyl,  "speaking  with  inspired  mouth,  smileless,  in- 
ornate, and  unperfumed,  pierces  through  centuries  by 
the  power  of  the  god."  The  scholar  might  frequently 
emulate  the  propriety  and  emphasis  of  the  farmer's  call 
to  his  team,  and  confess  that  if  that  were  written  it 
would  surpass  his  labored  sentences.  Whose  are  the 
truly  labored  sentences?      From  the  weak  and  flimsy 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  293 

periods  of  the  politician  and  literary  man,  we  are  glad 
to  turn  even  to  the  description  of  work,  the  simple  rec- 
ord of  the  month's  labor  in  the  farmer's  almanac,  to 
restore  our  tone  and  spirits.  A  sentence  should  read  as  if 
its  author,  had  he  held  a  plough  instead  of  a  pen,  could 
have  drawn  a  furrow  deep  and  straight  to  the  end.  The 
scholar  requires  hard  and  serious  labor  to  give  an  im- 
petus to  his  thought.  He  will  learn  to  grasp  the  pen 
firmly  so,  and  wield  it  gracefully  and  effectively,  as  an 
axe  or  a  sword.  When  we  consider  the  weak  and  nerve- 
less periods  of  some  literary  men,  who  perchance  in  feet 
and  inches  come  up  to  the  standard  of  their  race,  and 
are  not  deficient  in  girth  also,  we  are  amazed  at  the 
immense  sacrifice  of  thews  and  sinews.  What!  these 
proportions, —  these  bones, —  and  this  their  work! 
Hands  which  could  have  felled  an  ox  have  hewed  this 
fragile  matter  which  would  not  have  tasked  a  lady's 
fingers!  Can  this  be  a  stalwart  man's  work,  who  has  a 
marrow  in  his  back  and  a  tendon  Achilles  in  his  heel? 
They  who  set  up  the  blocks  of  Stonehenge  did  some- 
what, if  they  only  laid  out  their  strength  for  once,  and 
stretched  themselves. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  truly  efficient  laborer  will  not 
crowd  his  day  with  work,  but  will  saunter  to  his  task, 
surrounded  by  a  wide  halo  of  ease  and  leisure,  and  then 
do  but  what  he  loves  best.  He  is  anxious  only  about  the 
fruitful  kernels  of  time.  Though  the  hen  should  sit  all 
day,  she  could  lay  only  one  egg,  and,  besides,  would  not 
have  picked  up  materials  for  another.  Let  a  man  take 
time  enough  for  the  most  trivial  deed,  though  it  be  but 
the  paring  of  his  nails.  The  buds  swell  imperceptibly, 
without  hurry  or  confusion,  as  if  the  short  spring  days 
were  an  eternity. 


294  THE  SINEWS  OF  STYLE 

Then  spend  an  age  in  whetting  thy  desire, 
Thou  need'st  not  hasten  if  thou  dost  standfast. 

Some  hours  seem  not  to  be  occasion  for  any  deed,  but 
for  resolves  to  draw  breath  in.  We  do  not  directly  go 
about  the  execution  of  the  purpose  that  thrills  us,  but 
shut  our  doors  behind  us  and  ramble  with  prepared 
mind,  as  if  the  half  were  already  done.  Our  resolution  is 
taking  root  or  hold  on  the  earth  then,  as  seeds  first  send 
a  shoot  downward  which  is  fed  by  their  own  albumen, 
ere  they  send  one  upward  to  the  light. 


STYLE  AS  ORGANIC  AND 
AS  MECHANIC 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY 

1785-1859 

The  "Essay  on  Style,"  from  which  the  following  passage  is 
taken,  was  published  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  in  1840-41. 
Professor  F.  N.  Scott,  who  has  made  the  essays  of  De 
Quincey  available  for  students,  estimates  his  contribution  to 
literary  art  as  follows:  "He  discovered  capacities  of  prose, 
which,  before  his  time,  had  not  been  known  to  exist;  or  if  they 
existed  in  isolation,  no  one  had  before  woven  them  together, 
and  to  weave  together  is,  in  art,  to  make  a  new  thing.  The 
quality  which  distinguishes  De  Quincey  as  a  writer  of  prose  is 
his  ability  to  conceive,  in  language,  a  constructive  whole  of  a 
musical  order." 

The  text  here  followed  is  that  edited  by  Professor  Scott  and 
published  by  Allyn  and  Bacon  (Boston). 

IT  is  a  fault,  amongst  many  faults,  of  such  works  as 
we  have  on  this  subject  of  style,  that  they  collect  the 
list  of  qualities,  good  or  bad,  to  which  composition  is 
liable,  not  under  any  principle  from  which  they  might 
be  deduced  a  -priori^  so  as  to  be  assured  that  all  had  been 
enumerated,  but  by  a  tentative  groping,  a  mere  con- 
jectural estimate.  The  word  style  has  with  us  a  twofold 
meaning:  one,  the  narrow  meaning,  expressing  the  mere 
synthesis  onomaton,  the  syntaxis  or  combination  of 
words  into  sentences;  the  other  of  far  wider  extent,  and 
expressing  all  possible  relations  that  can  arise  between 
thoughts  and  words  —  the  total  effect  of  a  writer  as 
derived  from  manner.  Style  may  be  viewed  as  an  or- 
ganic thing  and  as  a  mechanic  thing.  By  organic,  we 
mean  that  which,  being  acted  upon,  reacts,  and  which 


296  STYLE 

propagates  the  communicated  power  without  loss.  By- 
mechanic,  that  which,  being  impressed  with  motion, 
cannot  throw  it  back  without  loss,  and  therefore  soon 
comes  to  an  end.  The  human  body  is  an  elaborate  sys- 
tem of  organs;  it  is  sustained  by  organs.  But  the  human 
body  is  exercised  as  a  machine,  and  as  such  may  be 
viewed  in  the  arts  of  riding,  dancing,  leaping,  &c,  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  of  motion  and  equilibrium.  Now,  the 
use  of  words  is  an  organic  thing,  in  so  far  as  language  is 
connected  with  thoughts,  and  modified  by  thoughts.  It 
is  a  mechanic  thing,  in  so  far  as  words  in  combination 
determine  or  modify  each  other.  The  science  of  style  as 
an  organ  of  thought,  of  style  in  relation  to  the  ideas  and 
feelings,  might  be  called  the  organology  of  style.  The 
science  of  style  considered  as  a  machine,  in  which  words 
act  upon  words,  and  through  a  particular  grammar, 
might  be  called  the  mechanology  of  style.  It  is  of  little 
importance  by  what  name  these  two  functions  of  com- 
position are  expressed.  But  it  is  of  great  importance  not 
to  confound  the  functions:  that  function  by  which  style 
maintains  a  commerce  with  thought,  and  that  by  which 
it  chiefly  communicates  with  grammar  and  with  words. 
A  pedant  only  will  insist  upon  the  names;  but  the  dis- 
tinction in  the  ideas,  under  some  name,  can  be  neglected 
only  by  the  man  who  is  careless  of  logic. 

We  know  not  how  far  we  may  be  ever  called  upon  to 
proceed  with  this  discussion.  If  it  should  happen  that 
we  were,  an  interesting  field  of  questions  would  lie  be- 
fore us  for  the  first  part  (the  organology).  It  would  lead 
us  over  the  ground  trodden  by  the  Greek  and  Roman 
rhetoricians,  and  over  those  particular  questions  which 
have  arisen  by  the  contrast  between  the  circumstances 
of  the  ancients  and  our  own  since  the  origin  of  printing. 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY  297 

Punctuation,1  trivial  as  such  an  innovation  may  seem, 
was  the  product  of  typography;  and  it  is  interesting  to 
trace  the  effects  upon  style  even  of  that  one  slight  addi- 
tion to  the  resources  of  logic.  Previously  a  man  was 
driven  to  depend  for  his  security  against  misunderstand- 
ing upon  the  pure  virtue  of  his  syntax.  Miscollocation 
or  dislocation  of  related  words  disturbed  the  whole 
sense;  its  least  effect  was  to  give  no  sense  —  often  gave 
it  a  dangerous  sense.  Now,  punctuation  was  an  artificial 
machinery  for  maintaining  the  integrity  of  the  sense 
against  all  mistakes  of  the  writer;  and,  as  one  conse- 
quence, it  withdrew  the  energy  of  men's  anxieties  from 
the  natural  machinery,  which  lay  in  just  and  careful 
arrangement.  Another  and  still  greater  machinery  of 
art  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  sense,  and  with 
the  effect  of  relaxing  the  care  of  the  writer,  lay  in  the 
exquisitely  artificial  structure  of  the  Latin  language, 
which  by  means  of  its  terminal  forms  indicated  the  ar- 
rangement, and  referred  the  proper  predicate  to  the 

1  This  is  a  most  instructive  fact;  and  it  is  another  fact  not  less  in- 
structive that  lawyers  in  most  parts  of  Christendom,  I  believe,  cer- 
tainly wherever  they  are  wide-awake  professionally,  tolerate  no 
punctuation.  But  why?  Are  lawyers  not  sensible  to  the  luminous 
effect  from  a  point  happily  placed?  Yes,  they  are  sensible;  but  also 
they  are  sensible  of  the  false  prejudicating  effect  from  a  punctuation 
managed  (as  too  generally  it  is)  carelessly  and  illogically.  Here  is  a 
brief  abstract  of  the  case.  All  punctuation  narrows  the  path,  which  is 
else  unlimited;  and  {by  narrowing  it)  may  chance  to  guide  the  reader 
into  the  right  groove  amongst  several  that  are  not  right.  But  also 
punctuation  has  the  effect  very  often  (and  almost  always  has  the 
power)  of  biassing  and  predetermining  the  reader  to  an  erroneous 
choice  of  meaning.  Better,  therefore,  no  guide  at  all  than  one  which 
is  likely  enough  to  lead  astray,  and  which  must  always  be  suspected 
and  mistrusted,  inasmuch  as  very  nearly  always  it  has  the  power  to 
lead  astray.  —  Author. 


298  STYLE 

proper  subject,  spite  of  all  that  affectation  or  negligence 
could  do  to  disturb  the  series  of  the  logic  or  the  succes- 
sion of  the  syntax.  Greek,  of  course,  had  the  same  ad- 
vantage in  kind,  but  not  in  degree;  and  thence  rose 
some  differences  which  have  escaped  all  notice  of  rhet- 
oricians. Here  also  would  properly  arise  the  question, 
started  by  Charles  Fox  (but  probably  due  originally  to 
the  conversation  of  some  far  subtler  friend,  such  as 
Edmund  Burke),  how  far  the  practice  of  footnotes —  a 
practice  purely  modern  in  its  form  —  is  reconcilable 
with  the  laws  of  just  composition:  and  whether  in  virtue, 
though  not  in  form,  such  footnotes  did  not  exist  for  the 
ancients,  by  an  evasion  we  could  point  out.  The  ques- 
tion is  clearly  one  which  grows  out  of  style  in  its  rela- 
tions to  thought:  how  far,  viz.,  such  an  excrescence  as  a 
note  argues  that  the  sentence  to  which  it  is  attached  has 
not  received  the  benefit  of  a  full  development  for  the 
conception  involved;  whether,  if  thrown  into  the  fur- 
nace again  and  remelted,  it  might  not  be  so  recast  as  to 
absorb  the  redundancy  which  had  previously  flowed 
over  into  a  note.  Under  this  head  would  fall  not  only 
all  the  differential  questions  of  style  and  composition 
between  us  and  the  ancients,  but  also  the  questions  of 
merit  as  fairly  distributed  amongst  the  moderns  com- 
pared with  each  other.  The  French,  as  we  recently  in- 
sisted, undoubtedly  possess  one  vast  advantage  over  all 
other  nations  in  the  good  taste  which  governs  the  ar- 
rangement of  their  sentences;  in  the  simplicity  (a 
strange  pretension  to  make  for  anything  French)  of  the 
modulation  under  which  their  thoughts  flow;  in  the 
absence  of  all  cumbrous  involution,  and  in  the  quick 
succession  of  their  periods.  In  reality  this  invaluable 
merit  tends  to  an  excess;  and  the  style  coupe  as  opposed 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY  299 

to  the  style  soutenu,  flippancy  opposed  to  solemnity,  the 
subsultory  to  the  continuous,  these  are  the  too  frequent 
extremities  to  which  the  French  manner  betrays  men. 
Better,  however,  to  be  flippant  than  by  a  revolting  form 
of  tumour  and  perplexity  to  lead  men  into  habits  of  in- 
tellect such  as  result  from  the  modern  vice  of  English 
style.  Still,  with  all  its  practical  value,  it  is  evident  that 
the  intellectual  merits  of  the  French  style  are  but  small. 
They  are  chiefly  negative,  in  the  first  place;  and,  sec- 
ondly, founded  in  the  accident  of  their  colloquial  neces- 
sities. The  law  of  conversation  has  prescribed  the  model 
of  their  sentences,  and  in  that  law  there  is  quite  as  much 
of  self-interest  at  work  as  of  respect  for  equity.  Hanc 
veniam  petimusque  damusque  vicissim.  Give  and  take  is 
the  rule;  and  he  who  expects  to  be  heard  must  conde- 
scend to  listen;  which  necessity  for  both  parties  binds 
over  both  to  be  brief.  Brevity  so  won  could  at  any  rate 
have  little  merit,  and  it  is  certain  that  for  profound 
thinking  it  must  sometimes  be  a  hindrance.  In  order  to 
be  brief  a  man  must  take  a  short  sweep  of  view;  his 
range  of  thought  cannot  be  extensive;  and  such  a  rule, 
applied  to  a  general  method  of  thinking,  is  fitted  rather 
to  aphorisms  and  maxims,  as  upon  a  known  subject, 
than  to  any  process  of  investigation  as  upon  a  subject 
yet  to  be  fathomed.  Advancing  still  further  into  the 
examination  of  style  as  the  organ  of  thinking,  we  should 
find  occasion  to  see  the  prodigious  defects  of  the  French 
in  all  the  higher  qualities  of  prose  composition.  One 
advantage,  for  a  practical  purpose  of  life,  is  sadly  coun- 
terbalanced by  numerous  faults,  many  of  which  are 
faults  of  stamina,  lying  not  in  any  corrigible  defects,  but 
in  such  as  imply  penury  of  thinking  from  radical  inapti- 
tude in  the  thinking  faculty  to  connect  itself  with  the 


3oo  STYLE 

feeling  and  with  the  creative  faculty  of  the  imagination. 
There  are  many  other  researches  belonging  to  this  sub- 
tlest of  subjects,  affecting  both  the  logic  and  the  orna- 
ments of  style,  which  would  fall  under  the  head  of 
organology.  But  for  instant  practical  use,  though  far 
less  difficult  for  investigation,  yet  for  that  reason  far 
more  tangible  and  appreciable,  would  be  all  the  sugges- 
tions proper  to  the  other  head  of  mechanology.  Half 
a  dozen  rules  for  evading  the  most  frequently  recurring 
forms  of  awkwardness,  of  obscurity,  of  misproportion, 
and  of  double  meaning,  would  do  more  to  assist  a  writer 
in  practice,  laid  under  some  necessity  of  hurry,  than 
volumes  of  general  disquisition.  It  makes  us  blush  to 
add  that  even  grammar  is  so  little  of  a  perfect  attain- 
ment amongst  us  that,  with  two  or  three  exceptions 
(one  being  Shakspere,  whom  some  affect  to  consider  as 
belonging  to  a  semi-barbarous  age),  we  have  never  seen 
the  writer,  through  a  circuit  of  prodigious  reading,  who 
has  not  sometimes  violated  the  accidence  or  the  syntax 
of  English  grammar. 

Whatever  becomes  of  our  own  possible  speculations, 
we  shall  conclude  with  insisting  on  the  growing  neces- 
sity of  style  as  a  practical  interest  of  daily  life.  Upon 
subjects  of  public  concern,  and  in  proportion  to  that 
concern,  there  will  always  be  a  suitable  (and  as  letters 
extend,  a  growing)  competition.  Other  things  being 
equal,  or  appearing  to  be  equal,  the  determining  prin- 
ciple for  the  public  choice  will  lie  in  the  style.  Of  a  Ger- 
man book,  otherwise  entitled  to  respect,  it  was  said  — 
er  liisst  sich  nicht  lesen  —  it  does  not  permit  itself  to  be 
read,  such  and  so  repulsive  was  the  style.  Among  our- 
selves, this  has  long  been  true  of  newspapers.  They  do 
not  suffer  themselves  to  be  read  in  extenso;  and  they  are 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY  301 

read  short,  with  what  injury  to  the  mind  we  have  no- 
ticed. The  same  style  of  reading,  once  largely  practised, 
is  applied  universally.  To  this  special  evil  an  improve- 
ment of  style  would  apply  a  special  redress.  The  same 
improvement  is  otherwise  clamorously  called  for  by 
each  man's  interest  of  competition.  Public  luxury, 
which  is  gradually  consulted  by  everything  else,  must  at 
length  be  consulted  in  style. 


ubrmn       t 


ON  STYLE  i 

ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER 

1788-1860 

The  Art  of  Literature,  from  which  "On  Style"  is  taken,  is  a 
volume  of  essays  on  literary  subjects  that  Mr.  T.  Bailey 
Saunders  translated  (1 891)  from  Schopenhauer's  Parerga 
(1851).  Schopenhauer's  reputation  as  "one  of  the  best  of  the 
few  really  excellent  prose-writers  of  whom  Germany  can 
boast"  makes  his  observations  on  writing  particularly 
valuable. 

STYLE  is  the  physiognomy  of  the  mind,  and  a  safer 
index  to  character  than  the  face.  To  imitate  an- 
other man's  style  is  like  wearing  a  mask,  which,  be  it 
never  so  fine,  is  not  long  in  arousing  disgust  and  abhor- 
rence, because  it  is  lifeless;  so  that  even  the  ugliest 
living  face  is  better.  Hence  those  who  write  in  Latin 
and  copy  the  manner  of  ancient  authors  may  be  said  to 
speak  through  a  mask;  the  reader,  it  is  true,  hears  what 
they  say,  but  he  cannot  observe  their  physiognomy  too; 
he  cannot  see  their  style.  With  the  Latin  works  of 
writers  who  think  for  themselves  the  case  is  different, 
and  their  style  is  visible;  writers,  I  mean,  who  have  not 
condescended  to  any  sort  of  imitation,  such  as  Scotus 
Erigena,  Petrarch,  Bacon,  Descartes,  Spinoza,  and 
many  others.  And  affectation  in  style  is  like  making 
grimaces.  Further,  the  language  in  which  a  man  writes 
is  the  physiognomy  of  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs; 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of  Mr.  T.  Bailey  Saunders  and  his 
former  publishers,  Messrs.  Swan,  Sonnenschein  and  Company, 
Limited,  London. 

302 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER         303 

and  here  there  are  many  hard  and  fast  differences,  be- 
ginning from  the  language  of  the  Greeks,  down  to  that 
of  the  Caribbean  islanders. 

To  form  a  provisional  estimate  of  the  value  of  a 
writer's  productions,  it  is  not  directly  necessary  to 
know  the  subject  on  which  he  has  thought,  or  what  it  is 
that  he  has  said  about  it;  that  would  imply  a  perusal  of 
all  his  works.  It  will  be  enough,  in  the  main,  to  know 
how  he  has  thought.  This,  which  means  the  essential 
temper  or  general  quality  of  his  mind,  may  be  precisely 
determined  by  his  style.  A  man's  style  shows  the  formal 
nature  of  all  his  thoughts  —  the  formal  nature  which 
can  never  change,  be  the  subject  or  the  character  of  his 
thoughts  what  it  may:  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  dough  out  of 
which  all  the  contents  of  his  mind  are  kneaded.  When 
Eulenspiegel  was  asked  how  long  it  would  take  to  walk 
to  the  next  village,  he  gave  the  seemingly  incongruous 
answer:  Walk.  He  wanted  to  find  out  by  the  man's 
pace  the  distance  he  would  cover  in  a  given  time.  In  the 
same  way,  when  I  have  read  a  few  pages  of  an  author,  I 
know  fairly  well  how  far  he  can  bring  me. 

Every  mediocre  writer  tries  to  mask  his  own  natural 
style,  because  in  his  heart  he  knows  the  truth  of  what  I 
am  saying.  He  is  thus  forced,  at  the  outset,  to  give  up 
any  attempt  at  being  frank  or  naive  —  a  privilege 
which  is  thereby  reserved  for  superior  minds,  conscious 
of  their  own  worth,  and  therefore  sure  of  themselves. 
What  I  mean  is  that  these  everyday  writers  are  abso- 
lutely unable  to  resolve  upon  writing  just  as  they  think; 
because  they  have  a  notion  that,  were  they  to  do  so, 
their  work  might  possibly  look  very  childish  and  simple. 
For  all  that,  it  would  not  be  without  its  value.  If  they 
would  only  go  honestly  to  work,  and  say,  quite  simply, 


304  ON  STYLE 

the  things  they  have  really  thought,  and  just  as  they 
have  thought  them,  these  writers  would  be  readable  and, 
within  their  own  proper  sphere,  even  instructive. 

But  instead  of  this,  they  try  to  make  the  reader  be- 
lieve that  their  thoughts  have  gone  much  further  and 
deeper  than  is  really  the  case.  They  say  what  they  have 
to  say  in  long  sentences  that  wind  about  in  a  forced  and 
unnatural  way;  they  coin  new  words  and  write  prolix 
periods  which  go  round  and  round  the  thought  and 
wrap  it  up  in  a  sort  of  disguise.  They  tremble  between 
the  two  separate  aims  of  communicating  what  they 
want  to  say  and  of  concealing  it.  Their  object  is  to  dress 
it  up  so  that  it  may  look  learned  or  deep,  in  order  to 
give  people  the  impression  that  there  is  very  much  more 
in  it  than  for  the  moment  meets  the  eye.  They  either 
jot  down  their  thoughts  bit  by  bit,  in  short,  ambiguous, 
and  paradoxical  sentences,  which  apparently  mean 
much  more  than  they  say  —  of  this  kind  of  writing 
Schelling's  treatises  on  natural  philosophy  are  a  splendid 
instance;  or  else  they  hold  forth  with  a  deluge  of  words 
and  the  most  intolerable  diffusiveness,  as  though  no  end 
of  fuss  were  necessary  to  make  the  reader  understand 
the  deep  meaning  of  their  sentences,  whereas  it  is  some 
quite  simple  if  not  actually  trivial  idea  —  examples  of 
which  may  be  found  in  plenty  in  the  popular  works  of 
Fichte,  and  the  philosophical  manuals  of  a  hundred 
other  miserable  dunces  not  worth  mentioning;  or,  again, 
they  try  to  write  in  some  particular  style  which  they 
have  been  pleased  to  take  up  and  think  very  grand,  a 
style,  for  example,  par  excellence  profound  and  scientific, 
where  the  reader  is  tormented  to  death  by  the  narcotic 
effect  of  long-spun  periods  without  a  single  idea  in  them, 
—  such  as  are  furnished  in  a  special  measure  by  those 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER         305 

most  impudent  of  all  mortals,  the  Hegelians;1  or  it  may- 
be that  it  is  an  intellectual  style  they  have  striven  after, 
where  it  seems  as  though  their  object  were  to  go  crazy 
altogether;  and  so  on  in  many  other  cases.  All  these 
endeavours  to  put  off  the  nascetur  ridiculus  mus  —  to 
avoid  showing  the  funny  little  creature  that  is  born 
after  such  mighty  throes  —  often  make  it  difficult  to 
know  what  it  is  that  they  really  mean.  And  then,  too, 
they  write  down  words,  nay,  even  whole  sentences, 
without  attaching  any  meaning  to  them  themselves, 
but  in  the  hope  that  someone  else  will  get  sense  out  of 
them. 

And  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  this?  Nothing  but 
the  untiring  effort  to  sell  words  for  thoughts;  a  mode  of 
merchandise  that  is  always  trying  to  make  fresh  open- 
ings for  itself,  and  by  means  of  odd  expressions,  turns 
of  phrase,  and  combinations  of  every  sort,  whether  new 
or  used  in  a  new  sense,  to  produce  the  appearance  of  in- 
tellect in  order  to  make  up  for  the  very  painfully  felt 
lack  of  it. 

It  is  amusing  to  see  how  writers  with  this  object  in 
view  will  attempt  first  one  mannerism  and  then  another, 
as  though  they  were  putting  on  the  mask  of  intellect! 
This  mask  may  possibly  deceive  the  inexperienced  for  a 
while,  until  it  is  seen  to  be  a  dead  thing,  with  no  life  in  it 
at  all:  it  is  then  laughed  at  and  exchanged  for  another. 
Such  an  author  will  at  one  moment  write  in  a  dithy- 
rambic  vein,  as  though  he  were  tipsy;  at  another,  nay, 
on  the  very  next  page,  he  will  be  pompous,  severe,  pro- 
foundly learned  and  prolix,  stumbling  on  in  the  most 
cumbrous  way  and  chopping  up  everything  very  small; 

1  In  their  Hegel-gazette,  commonly  known  as  Jahrbiuher  der 
wissenschajtlichen  Literatur. 


306  ON  STYLE 

like  the  late  Christian  Wolf,  only  in  a  modern  dress. 
Longest  of  all  lasts  the  mask  of  unintelligibility;  but 
this  is  only  in  Germany,  whither  it  was  introduced  by 
Fichte,  perfected  by  Schelling,  and  carried  to  its  highest 
pitch  in  Hegel  —  always  with  the  best  results. 

And  yet  nothing  is  easier  than  to  write  so  that  no  one 
can  understand;  just  as,  contrarily,  nothing  is  more 
difficult  than  to  express  deep  things  in  such  a  way  that 
everyone  must  necessarily  grasp  them.  All  the  arts  and 
tricks  I  have  been  mentioning  are  rendered  superfluous 
if  the  author  really  has  any  brains;  for  that  allows  him  to 
show  himself  as  he  is,  and  confirms  to  all  time  Horace's 
maxim  that  good  sense  is  the  source  and  origin  of  good 
style:  — 

Scribendi  rede  sapere  est  et  principium  etfons. 

But  those  authors  I  have  named  are  like  certain  workers 
in  metal,  who  try  a  hundred  different  compounds  to  take 
the  place  of  gold  —  the  only  metal  which  can  never  have 
any  substitute.  Rather  than  do  that,  there  is  nothing 
against  which  a  writer  should  be  more  upon  his  guard 
than  the  manifest  endeavour  to  exhibit  more  intellect 
than  he  really  has,  because  this  makes  the  reader  suspect 
that  he  possesses  very  little;  since  it  is  always  the  case 
that  if  a  man  affects  anything,  whatever  it  may  be,  it  is 
just  there  that  he  is  deficient. 

That  is  why  it  is  praise  to  an  author  to  say  that  he  is 
naive;  it  means  that  he  need  not  shrink  from  showing 
himself  as  he  is.  Generally  speaking,  to  be  naive  is  to  be 
attractive;  while  lack  of  naturalness  is  everywhere  re- 
pulsive. As  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  that  every  really 
great  writer  tries  to  express  his  thoughts  as  purely, 
clearly,  definitely  and  shortly  as  possible.    Simplicity 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER         307 

has  always  been  held  to  be  a  mark  of  truth;  it  is  also  a 
mark  of  genius.  Style  receives  its  beauty  from  the 
thought  it  expresses;  but  with  sham-thinkers  the 
thoughts  are  supposed  to  be  fine  because  of  the  style. 
Style  is  nothing  but  the  mere  silhouette  of  thought; 
and  an  obscure  or  bad  style  means  a  dull  or  confused 
brain. 

The  first  rule,  then,  for  a  good  style  is  that  the  author 
should  have  something  to  say;  nay,  this  is  in  itself  almost 
all  that  is  necessary.  Ah,  how  much  it  means!  The 
neglect  of  this  rule  is  a  fundamental  trait  in  the  phil- 
osophical writing,  and,  in  fact,  in  all  the  reflective  litera- 
ture, of  my  country,  more  especially  since  Fichte. 
These  writers  all  let  it  be  seen  that  they  want  to  appear 
as  though  they  had  something  to  say;  whereas  they 
have  nothing  to  say.  Writing  of  this  kind  was  brought 
in  by  the  pseudo-philosophers  at  the  Universities,  and 
now  it  is  current  everywhere,  even  among  the  first 
literary  notabilities  of  the  age.  It  is  the  mother  of  that 
strained  and  vague  style,  where  there  seem  to  be  two 
or  even  more  meanings  in  the  sentence;  also  of  that 
prolix  and  cumbrous  manner  of  expression,  called  le 
stile  empese;  again,  of  that  mere  waste  of  words  which 
consists  in  pouring  them  out  like  a  flood;  finally,  of  that 
trick  of  concealing  the  direst  poverty  of  thought  under 
a  farrago  of  never-ending  chatter,  which  clacks  away 
like  a  windmill  and  quite  stupefies  one  —  stuff  which  a 
man  may  read  for  hours  together  without  getting  hold  of 
a  single  clearly  expressed  and  definite  idea.1  However, 
people  are  easy-going,  and  they  have  formed  the  habit 

1  Select  examples  of  the  art  of  writing  in  this  style  are  to  be  found 
almost  passim  in  the  Jahrbilcher  published  at  Halle,  afterwards  called 
Die  deutschen  Jahrbiicher.  —  Translator. 


3o8  ON  STYLE 

of  reading  page  upon  page  of  all  sorts  of  such  verbiage, 
without  having  any  particular  idea  of  what  the  author 
really  means.  They  fancy  it  is  all  as  it  should  be,  and 
fail  to  discover  that  he  is  writing  simply  for  writing's 
sake. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  good  author,  fertile  in  ideas, 
soon  wins  his  reader's  confidence  that,  when  he  writes, 
he  has  really  and  truly  something  to  say;  and  this  gives 
the  intelligent  reader  patience  to  follow  him  with  at- 
tention. Such  an  author,  just  because  he  really  has 
something  to  say,  will  never  fail  to  express  himself  in  the 
simplest  and  most  straightforward  manner;  because  his 
object  is  to  awake  the  very  same  thought  in  the  reader 
that  he  has  in  himself,  and  no  other.  So  he  will  be  able 
to  affirm  with  Boileau  that  his  thoughts  are  everywhere 
open  to  the  light  of  day,  and  that  his  verse  always  says 
something,  whether  it  says  it  well  or  ill:  — 

Ma  pensee  au  grand  jour  partout  s'offre  et  S1  expose, 
Et  mon  vers,  bien  ou  ma/,  dit  toujours  quelque  chose: 

while  of  the  writers  previously  described  it  may  be  as- 
serted, in  the  words  of  the  same  poet,  that  they  talk 
much  and  never  say  anything  at  all  —  qui  parlant 
beaucoup  ne  disent  jamais  rien. 

Another  characteristic  of  such  writers  is  that  they  al- 
ways avoid  a  positive  assertion  wherever  they  can  pos- 
sibly do  so,  in  order  to  leave  a  loophole  for  escape  in 
case  of  need.  Hence  they  never  fail  to  choose  the  more 
abstract  way  of  expressing  themselves;  whereas  intelli- 
gent people  use  the  more  concrete;  because  the  latter 
brings  things  more  within  the  range  of  actual  demon- 
stration, which  is  the  source  of  all  evidence. 

There  are  many  examples  proving  this  preference  for 
abstract  expression;  and  a  particularly  ridiculous  one  is 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER         309 

afforded  by  the  use  of  the  verb  to  condition  in  the  sense  of 
to  cause  or  to  produce.  People  say  to  condition  something 
instead  of  to  cause  it,  because  being  abstract  and  in- 
definite it  says  less;  it  affirms  that  A  cannot  happen 
without  B,  instead  of  that  A  is  caused  by  B.  A  back 
door  is  always  left  open;  and  this  suits  people  whose 
secret  knowledge  of  their  own  incapacity  inspires  them 
with  a  perpetual  terror  of  all  positive  assertion;  while 
with  other  people  it  is  merely  the  effect  of  that  tendency 
by  which  everything  that  is  stupid  in  literature  or  bad 
in  life  is  immediately  imitated  —  a  fact  proved  in  either 
case  by  the  rapid  way  in  which  it  spreads.  The  English- 
man uses  his  own  judgment  in  what  he  writes  as  well  as 
in  what  he  does;  but  there  is  no  nation  of  which  this 
eulogy  is  less  true  than  of  the  Germans.  The  conse- 
quence of  this  state  of  things  is  that  the  word  cause  has 
of  late  almost  disappeared  from  the  language  of  litera- 
ture, and  people  talk  only  of  condition.  The  fact  is 
worth  mentioning  because  it  is  so  characteristically 
ridiculous. 

The  very  fact  that  these  commonplace  authors  are 
never  more  than  half-conscious  when  they  write,  would 
be  enough  to  account  for  their  dulness  of  mind  and  the 
tedious  things  they  produce.  I  say  they  are  only  half- 
conscious,  because  they  really  do  not  themselves  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  words  they  use:  they  take 
words  ready-made  and  commit  them  to  memory. 
Hence  when  they  write,  it  is  not  so  much  words  as 
whole  phrases  that  they  put  together  —  phrases  banales. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  that  palpable  lack  of  clearly 
expressed  thought  in  what  they  say.  The  fact  is  that 
they  do  not  possess  the  die  to  give  this  stamp  to  their 
writing;  clear  thought  of  their  own  is  just  what  they 


310  ON  STYLE 

have  not  got.  And  what  do  we  find  in  its  place?  —  a 
vague,  enigmatical  intermixture  of  words,  current 
phrases,  hackneyed  terms  and  fashionable  expressions. 
The  result  is  that  the  foggy  stuff  they  write  is  like  a 
page  printed  with  very  old  type. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  intelligent  author  really  speaks 
to  us  when  he  writes,  and  that  is  why  he  is  able  to 
rouse  our  interest  and  commune  with  us.  It  is  the  intel- 
ligent author  alone  who  puts  individual  words  together 
with  a  full  consciousness  of  their  meaning,  and  chooses 
them  with  deliberate  design.  Consequently,  his  dis- 
course stands  to  that  of  the  writer  described  above, 
much  as  a  picture  that  has  been  really  painted  to  one 
that  has  been  produced  by  the  use  of  a  stencil.  In  the 
one  case,  every  word,  every  touch  of  the  brush,  has  a 
special  purpose;  in  the  other,  all  is  done  mechanically. 
The  same  distinction  may  be  observed  in  music.  For 
just  as  Lichtenberg  says  that  Garrick's  soul  seemed  to 
be  in  every  muscle  in  his  body;  so  it  is  the  omnipresence 
of  intellect  that  always  and  everywhere  characterises 
the  work  of  genius. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  tediousness  which  marks  the 
works  of  these  writers;  and  in  this  connection  it  is  to  be 
observed,  generally,  that  tediousness  is  of  two  kinds: 
objective  and  subjective.  A  work  is  objectively  tedious 
when  it  contains  the  defect  in  question;  that  is  to  say, 
when  its  author  has  no  perfectly  clear  thought  or  knowl- 
edge to  communicate.  For  if  a  man  has  any  clear 
thought  or  knowledge  in  him,  his  aim  will  be  to  com- 
municate it,  and  he  will  direct  his  energies  to  this  end; 
so  that  the  ideas  he  furnishes  are  everywhere  clearly 
expressed.  The  result  is  that  he  is  neither  diffuse,  nor 
unmeaning,  nor  confused,  and  consequently  not  tedious. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  311 

In  such  a  case,  even  though  the  author  is  at  bottom  in 
error,  the  error  is  at  any  rate  clearly  worked  out  and 
well  thought  over,  so  that  it  is  at  least  formally  correct; 
and  thus  some  value  always  attaches  to  the  work.  But 
for  the  same  reason  a  work  that  is  objectively  tedious  is 
at  all  times  devoid  of  any  value  whatever. 

The  other  kind  of  tediousness  is  only  relative:  a 
reader  may  find  a  work  dull  because  he  has  no  interest 
in  the  question  treated  of  in  it,  and  this  means  that  his 
intellect  is  restricted.  The  best  work  may,  therefore,  be 
tedious  subjectively,  tedious,  I  mean,  to  this  or  that 
particular  person;  just  as,  contrarily,  the  worst  work 
may  be  subjectively  engrossing  to  this  or  that  particular 
person  who  has  an  interest  in  the  question  treated  of,  or 
in  the  writer  of  the  book. 

It  would  generally  serve  writers  in  good  stead  if  they 
would  see  that,  whilst  a  man  should,  if  possible,  think 
like  a  great  genius,  he  should  talk  the  same  language  as 
everyone  else.  Authors  should  use  common  words  to  say 
uncommon  things.  But  they  do  just  the  opposite.  We 
find  them  trying  to  wrap  up  trivial  ideas  in  grand  words, 
and  to  clothe  their  very  ordinary  thoughts  in  the  most 
extraordinary  phrases,  the  most  far-fetched,  unnatural, 
and  out-of-the-way  expressions.  Their  sentences  per- 
petually stalk  about  on  stilts.  They  take  so  much 
pleasure  in  bombast,  and  write  in  such  a  high-flown, 
bloated,  affected,  hyperbolical  and  aerobatic  style  that 
their  prototype  is  Ancient  Pistol,  whom  his  friend  Fal- 
staff  once  impatiently  told  to  say  what  he  had  to  say 
like  a  man  of  this  world.1 

1  King  Henry  IV,  Part  II,  Act  v,  Sc.  3. 


312  ON  STYLE 

There  is  no  expression  in  any  other  language  exactly 
answering  to  the  French  stile  empese;  but  the  thing  itself 
exists  all  the  more  often.  When  associated  with  affec- 
tation, it  is  in  literature  what  assumption  of  dignity, 
grand  airs  and  primness  are  in  society;  and  equally  in- 
tolerable. Dulness  of  mind  is  fond  of  donning  this 
dress;  just  as  in  ordinary  life  it  is  stupid  people  who  like 
being  demure  and  formal. 

An  author  who  writes  in  the  prim  style  resembles  a 
man  who  dresses  himself  up  in  order  to  avoid  being  con- 
founded or  put  on  the  same  level  with  the  mob  —  a  risk 
never  run  by  the  gentleman,  even  in  his  worst  clothes. 
The  plebeian  may  be  known  by  a  certain  showiness  of 
attire  and  a  wish  to  have  everything  spick  and  span; 
and,  in  the  same  way,  the  commonplace  person  is  be- 
trayed by  his  style. 

Nevertheless,  an  author  follows  a  false  aim  if  he  tries 
to  write  exactly  as  he  speaks.  There  is  no  style  of  writ- 
ing but  should  have  a  certain  trace  of  kinship  with  the 
epigraphic  or  monumental  style,  which  is,  indeed,  the 
ancestor  of  all  styles.  For  an  author  to  write  as  he 
speaks  is  just  as  reprehensible  as  the  opposite  fault,  to 
speak  as  he  writes;  for  this  gives  a  pedantic  effect  to 
what  he  says,  and  at  the  same  time  makes  him  hardly 
intelligible. 

An  obscure  and  vague  manner  of  expression  is  always 
and  everywhere  a  very  bad  sign.  In  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  hundred  it  comes  from  vagueness  of  thought; 
and  this  again  almost  always  means  that  there  is  some- 
thing radically  wrong  and  incongruous  about  the 
thought  itself —  in  a  word,  that  it  is  incorrect.  When 
a  right  thought  springs  up  in  the  mind,  it  strives  after 
expression   and  is  not  long  in  reaching  it;  for  clear 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  313 

thought  easily  finds  words  to  fit  it.  If  a  man  is  capable 
of  thinking  anything  at  all,  he  is  also  always  able  to  ex- 
press it  in  clear,  intelligible,  and  unambiguous  terms. 
Those  writers  who  construct  difficult,  obscure,  involved, 
and  equivocal  sentences,  most  certainly  do  not  know 
aright  what  it  is  that  they  want  to  say:  they  have  only 
a  dull  consciousness  of  it,  which  is  still  in  the  stage  of 
struggle  to  shape  itself  as  thought.  Often,  indeed,  their 
desire  is  to  conceal  from  themselves  and  others  that 
they  really  have  nothing  at  all  to  say.  They  wish  to 
appear  to  know  what  they  do  not  know,  to  think  what 
they  do  not  think,  to  say  what  they  do  not  say.  If 
a  man  has  some  real  communication  to  make,  which 
will  he  choose  —  an  indistinct  or  a  clear  way  of  express- 
ing himself  ?  Even  Quintilian  remarks  that  things 
which  are  said  by  a  highly  educated  man  are  often 
easier  to  understand  and  much  clearer;  and  that  the  less 
educated  a  man  is,  the  more  obscurely  he  will  write  — 
plerumque  accidit  ut  faciliora  sint  ad  intelligendum  et 
lucidiora  multo  qme  a  doctissimo  quoque  dicuntur.  .  .  . 
Erit  ergo  etiam  obscurior  quo  quisque  deterior. 

An  author  should  avoid  enigmatical  phrases;  he 
should  know  whether  he  wants  to  say  a  thing  or  does 
not  want  to  say  it.  It  is  this  indecision  of  style  that 
makes  so  many  writers  insipid.  The  only  case  that  offers 
an  exception  to  this  rule  arises  when  it  is  necessary  to 
make  a  remark  that  is  in  some  way  improper. 

As  exaggeration  generally  produces  an  effect  the  op- 
posite of  that  aimed  at;  so  words,  it  is  true,  serve  to 
make  thought  intelligible  —  but  only  up  to  a  certain 
point.  If  words  are  heaped  up  beyond  it,  the  thought 
becomes  more  and  more  obscure  again.  To  find  where 
the  point  lies  is  the  problem  of  style,  and  the  business 


3 14  ON  STYLE 

of  the  critical  faculty;  for  a  word  too  much  always  de- 
feats its  purpose.  This  is  what  Voltaire  means  when  he 
says  that  the  adjective  is  the  enemy  of  the  substantive. 
But,  as  we  have  seen,  many  people  try  to  conceal  their 
poverty  of  thought  under  a  flood  of  verbiage. 

Accordingly,  let  all  redundancy  be  avoided,  all 
stringing  together  of  remarks  which  have  no  meaning 
and  are  not  worth  perusal.  A  writer  must  make  a 
sparing  use  of  the  reader's  time,  patience  and  attention; 
so  as  to  lead  him  to  believe  that  his  author  writes  what 
is  worth  careful  study,  and  will  reward  the  time  spent 
upon  it.  It  is  always  better  to  omit  something  good 
than  to  add  that  which  is  not  worth  saying  at  all.  This 
is  the  right  application  of  Hesiod's  maxim,  -wKkov  tffuav 
iravTos 1  —  the  half  is  more  than  the  whole.  Le  secret 
pour  etre  ennuyeux,  c'est  de  tout  dire.  Therefore,  if  pos- 
sible, the  quintessence  only!  mere  leading  thoughts! 
nothing  that  the  reader  would  think  for  himself.  To  use 
many  words  to  communicate  few  thoughts  is  every- 
where the  unmistakable  sign  of  mediocrity.  To  gather 
much  thought  into  few  words  stamps  the  man  of  genius. 

Truth  is  most  beautiful  undraped;  and  the  impres- 
sion it  makes  is  deep  in  proportion  as  its  expression  has 
been  simple.  This  is  so,  partly  because  it  then  takes 
unobstructed  possession  of  the  hearer's  whole  soul,  and 
leaves  him  no  by-thought  to  distract  him;  partly,  also, 
because  he  feels  that  here  he  is  not  being  corrupted  or 
cheated  by  the  arts  of  rhetoric,  but  that  all  the  effect  of 
what  is  said  comes  from  the  thing  itself.  For  instance, 
what  declamation  on  the  vanity  of  human  existence 
could  ever  be  more  telling  than  the  words  of  Job?  — 
Man  that  is  born  of  a  woman  hath  but  a  short  time  to  live 

1  Works  and  Days,  40. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  315 

and  is  full  of  misery.  He  cometh  up,  and  is  cut  down,  like 
a  flower;  he  fleeth  as  it  were  a  shadow,  and  never  continueth 
in  one  stay. 

For  the  same  reason  Goethe's  nai've  poetry  is  incom- 
parably greater  than  Schiller's  rhetoric.  It  is  this, 
again,  that  makes  many  popular  songs  so  affecting.  As 
in  architecture  an  excess  of  decoration  is  to  be  avoided, 
so  in  the  art  of  literature  a  writer  must  guard  against  all 
rhetorical  finery,  all  useless  amplification,  and  all  super- 
fluity of  expression  in  general;  in  a  word,  he  must  strive 
after  chastity  of  style.  Every  word  that  can  be  spared  is 
hurtful  if  it  remains.  The  law  of  simplicity  and  naivete 
holds  good  of  all  fine  art;  for  it  is  quite  possible  to  be  at 
once  simple  and  sublime. 

True  brevity  of  expression  consists  in  everywhere 
saying  only  what  is  worth  saying,  and  in  avoiding 
tedious  detail  about  things  which  everyone  can  supply 
for  himself.  This  involves  correct  discrimination  be- 
tween what  is  necessary  and  what  is  superfluous.  A 
writer  should  never  be  brief  at  the  expense  of  being 
clear,  to  say  nothing  of  being  grammatical.  It  shows 
lamentable  want  of  judgment  to  weaken  the  expression 
of  a  thought,  or  to  stunt  the  meaning  of  a  period  for  the 
sake  of  using  a  few  words  less.  But  this  is  the  precise 
endeavour  of  that  false  brevity  nowadays  so  much  in 
vogue,  which  proceeds  by  leaving  out  useful  words  and 
even  by  sacrificing  grammar  and  logic.  It  is  not  only 
that  such  writers  spare  a  word  by  making  a  single  verb 
or  adjective  do  duty  for  several  different  periods,  so 
that  the  reader,  as  it  were,  has  to  grope  his  way  through 
them  in  the  dark;  they  also  practise,  in  many  other  re- 
spects, an  unseemly  economy  of  speech,  in  the  effort  to 
effect  what  they  foolishly  take  to  be  brevity  of  expres- 


3i6  ON  STYLE 

sion  and  conciseness  of  style.  By  omitting  something 
that  might  have  thrown  a  light  over  the  whole  sentence, 
they  turn  it  into  a  conundrum,  which  the  reader  tries  to 
solve  by  going  over  it  again  and  again.1 

It  is  wealth  and  weight  of  thought,  and  nothing  else, 
that  gives  brevity  to  style,  and  makes  it  concise  and 
pregnant.  If  a  writer's  ideas  are  important,  luminous, 
and  generally  worth  communicating,  they  will  neces- 
sarily furnish  matter  and  substance  enough  to  fill  out 
the  periods  which  give  them  expression,  and  make  these 
in  all  their  parts  both  grammatically  and  verbally  com- 
plete; and  so  much  will  this  be  the  case  that  no  one  will 
ever  find  them  hollow,  empty  or  feeble.  The  diction 
will  everywhere  be  brief  and  pregnant,  and  allow  the 
thought  to  find  intelligible  and  easy  expression,  and 
even  unfold  and  move  about  with  grace. 

Therefore  instead  of  contracting  his  words  and  forms 
of  speech,  let  a  writer  enlarge  his  thoughts.  If  a  man 
has  been  thinned  by  illness  and  finds  his  clothes  too  big, 
it  is  not  by  cutting  them  down,  but  by  recovering  his 
usual  bodily  condition,  that  he  ought  to  make  them  fit 
him  again. 

Let  me  here  mention  an  error  of  style  very  prevalent 
nowadays,  and,  in  the  degraded  state  of  literature  and 
the  neglect  of  ancient  languages,  always  on  the  increase; 

1  In  the  original,  Schopenhauer  here  enters  upon  a  lengthy  exam- 
ination of  certain  common  errors  in  the  writing  and  speaking  of  Ger- 
man. His  remarks  are  addressed  to  his  own  countrymen,  and  would 
lose  all  point,  even  if  they  were  intelligible,  in  an  English  translation. 
But  for  those  who  practise  their  German  by  conversing  or  correspond- 
ing with  Germans,  let  me  recommend  what  he  there  says  as  a  useful 
corrective  to  a  slipshod  style,  such  as  can  easily  be  contracted  if  it  is 
assumed  that  the  natives  of  a  country  always  know  their  own  lan- 
guage perfectly.  —  Translator. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  317 

I  mean  subjectivity.  A  writer  commits  this  error  when 
he  thinks  it  enough  if  he  himself  knows  what  he  means 
and  wants  to  say,  and  takes  no  thought  for  the  reader, 
who  is  left  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  it  as  best  he  can. 
This  is  as  though  the  author  were  holding  a  monologue; 
whereas  it  ought  to  be  a  dialogue;  and  a  dialogue, 
too,  in  which  he  must  express  himself  all  the  more 
clearly  inasmuch  as  he  cannot  hear  the  questions  of  his 
interlocutor. 

Style  should  for  this  very  reason  never  be  subjective, 
but  objective^  and  it  will  not  be  objective  unless  the 
words  are  so  set  down  that  they  directly  force  the  reader 
to  think  precisely  the  same  thing  as  the  author  thought 
when  he  wrote  them.  Nor  will  this  result  be  obtained 
unless  the  author  has  always  been  careful  to  remember 
that  thought  so  far  follows  the  law  of  gravity  that  it 
travels  from  head  to  paper  much  more  easily  than  from 
paper  to  head;  so  that  he  must  assist  the  latter  passage 
by  every  means  in  his  power.  If  he  does  this,  a  writer's 
words  will  have  a  purely  objective  effect,  like  that  of  a 
finished  picture  in  oils;  whilst  the  subjective  style  is  not 
much  more  certain  in  its  working  than  spots  on  the  wall, 
which  look  like  figures  only  to  one  whose  phantasy  has 
been  accidentally  aroused  by  them;  other  people  see 
nothing  but  spots  and  blurs.  The  difference  in  question 
applies  to  literary  method  as  a  whole;  but  it  is  often 
established  also  in  particular  instances.  For  example, 
in  a  recently  published  work  I  found  the  following  sen- 
tence: /  have  not  written  in  order  to  increase  the  number  of 
existing  books.  This  means  just  the  opposite  of  what  the 
writer  wanted  to  say,  and  is  nonsense  as  well. 

He  who  writes  carelessly  confesses  thereby  at  the  very 
outset  that  he  does  not  attach  much  importance  to  his 


3i 8  ON  STYLE 

own  thoughts.  For  it  is  only  where  a  man  is  convinced 
of  the  truth  and  importance  of  his  thoughts,  that  he 
feels  the  enthusiasm  necessary  for  an  untiring  and  as- 
siduous effort  to  find  the  clearest,  finest,  and  strongest 
expression  for  them  — just  as  for  sacred  relics  of  price- 
less works  of  art  there  are  provided  silvern  or  golden 
receptacles.  It  was  this  feeling  that  led  ancient  authors, 
whose  thoughts,  expressed  in  their  own  words,  have 
lived  thousands  of  years,  and  therefore  bear  the  hon- 
oured title  of  classics,  always  to  write  with  care.  Plato, 
indeed,  is  said  to  have  written  the  introduction  to  his 
Republic  seven  times  over  in  different  ways.1 

As  neglect  of  dress  betrays  want  of  respect  for  the 
company  a  man  meets,  so  a  hasty,  careless,  bad  style 
shows  an  outrageous  lack  of  regard  for  the  reader,  who 
then  rightly  punishes  it  by  refusing  to  read  the  book.  It 
is  especially  amusing  to  see  reviewers  criticising  the 
works  of  others  in  their  own  most  careless  style  —  the 
style  of  a  hireling.  It  is  as  if  a  judge  were  to  come  into 
court  in  dressing-gown  and  slippers!  If  I  see  a  man 
badly  and  dirtily  dressed,  I  feel  some  hesitation,  at  first, 
in  entering  into  conversation  with  him:  and  when,  on 
taking  up  a  book,  I  am  struck  at  once  by  the  negligence 
of  its  style,  I  put  it  away. 

Good  writing  should  be  governed  by  the  rule  that  a 
man  can  think  only  one  thing  clearly  at  a  time;  and, 
therefore,  that  he  should  not  be  expected  to  think  two 
or  even  more  things  in  one  and  the  same  moment.  But 
this  is  what  is  done  when  a  writer  breaks  up  his  prin- 
cipal sentence  into  little  pieces,  for  the  purpose  of  push- 

1  It  is  a  fact  worth  mentioning  that  the  first  twelve  words  of  the 
Republic  are  placed  in  the  exact  order  which  would  be  natural  in 
English.  —  Translator. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  319 

ing  into  the  gaps  thus  made  two  or  three  other  thoughts 
by  way  of  parenthesis;  thereby  unnecessarily  and 
wantonly  confusing  the  reader.  And  here  it  is  again  my 
own  countrymen  who  are  chiefly  in  fault.  That  German 
lends  itself  to  this  way  of  writing,  makes  the  thing  pos- 
sible, but  does  not  justify  it.  No  prose  reads  more  easily 
or  pleasantly  than  French,  because,  as  a  rule,  it  is  free 
from  the  error  in  question.  The  Frenchman  strings  his 
thoughts  together,  as  far  as  he  can,  in  the  most  logical 
and  natural  order,  and  so  lays  them  before  his  reader 
one  after  the  other  for  convenient  deliberation,  so  that 
every  one  of  them  may  receive  undivided  attention. 
The  German,  on  the  other  hand,  weaves  them  together 
into  a  sentence  which  he  twists  and  crosses,  and  crosses 
and  twists  again;  because  he  wants  to  say  six  things  all 
at  once,  instead  of  advancing  them  one  by  one.  His  aim 
should  be  to  attract  and  hold  the  reader's  attention;  but, 
above  and  beyond  neglect  of  this  aim,  he  demands  from 
the  reader  that  he  shall  set  the  above-mentioned  rule  at 
defiance,  and  think  three  or  four  different  thoughts  at 
one  and  the  same  time;  or,  since  that  is  impossible,  that 
his  thoughts  shall  succeed  each  other  as  quickly  as  the 
vibrations  of  a  chord.  In  this  way  an  author  lays  the 
foundation  of  his  stile  empese,  which  is  then  carried  to 
perfection  by  the  use  of  high-flown,  pompous  expressions 
to  communicate  the  simplest  things,  and  other  artifices 
of  the  same  kind. 

In  those  long  sentences  rich  in  involved  parentheses, 
like  a  box  of  boxes  one  within  another,  and  padded  out 
like  roast  geese  stuffed  with  apples,  it  is  really  the 
memory  that  is  chiefly  taxed;  while  it  is  the  understand- 
ing and  the  judgment  which  should  be  called  into  play, 
instead  of  having  their  activity  thereby  actually  hin- 


32o  ON  STYLE 

dered  and  weakened.1  This  kind  of  sentence  furnishes 
the  reader  with  mere  half-phrases,  which  he  is  then 
called  upon  to  collect  carefully  and  store  up  in  his 
memory,  as  though  they  were  the  pieces  of  a  torn  letter, 
afterwards  to  be  completed  and  made  sense  of  by  the 
other  halves  to  which  they  respectively  belong.  He  is 
expected  to  go  on  reading  for  a  little  without  exercising 
any  thought,  nay,  exerting  only  his  memory,  in  the  hope 
that,  when  he  comes  to  the  end  of  the  sentence,  he  may 
see  its  meaning  and  so  receive  something  to  think  about; 
and  he  is  thus  given  a  great  deal  to  learn  by  heart  before 
obtaining  anything  to  understand.  This  is  manifestly 
wrong  and  an  abuse  of  the  reader's  patience. 

The  ordinary  writer  has  an  unmistakable  preference 
for  this  style,  because  it  causes  the  reader  to  spend 
time  and  trouble  in  understanding  that  which  he  would 
have  understood  in  a  moment  without  it;  and  this 
makes  it  look  as  though  the  writer  had  more  depth  and 
intelligence  than  the  reader.  This  is,  indeed,  one  of 
those  artifices  referred  to  above,  by  means  of  which 
mediocre  authors  unconsciously,  and  as  it  were  by 
instinct,  strive  to  conceal  their  poverty  of  thought  and 
give  an  appearance  of  the  opposite.  Their  ingenuity  in 
this  respect  is  really  astounding. 

It  is  manifestly  against  all  sound  reason  to  put  one 
thought  obliquely  on  top  of  another,  as  though  both 
together  formed  a  wooden  cross.  But  this  is  what  is 
done  where  a  writer  interrupts  what  he  has  begun  to 
say,  for  the  purpose  of  inserting  some  quite  alien  mat- 

1  This  sentence  in  the  original  is  obviously  meant  to  illustrate  the 
fault  of  which  it  speaks.  It  does  so  by  the  use  of  a  construction  very 
common  in  German,  but  happily  unknown  in  English;  where,  how- 
ever, the  fault  itself  exists  none  the  less,  though  in  a  different  form.  — 
Translator. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  321 

ter;  thus  depositing  with  the  reader  a  meaningless  half- 
sentence,  and  bidding  him  keep  it  until  the  completion 
comes.  It  is  much  as  though  a  man  were  to  treat  his 
guests  by  handing  them  an  empty  plate,  in  the  hope  of 
something  appearing  upon  it.  And  commas  used  for  a 
similar  purpose  belong  to  the  same  family  as  notes  at 
the  foot  of  the  page  and  parentheses  in  the  middle  of 
the  text;  nay,  all  three  differ  only  in  degree.  If  De- 
mosthenes and  Cicero  occasionally  inserted  words  by 
way  of  parenthesis,  they  would  have  done  better  to 
have  refrained. 

But  this  style  of  writing  becomes  the  height  of  ab- 
surdity when  the  parentheses  are  not  even  fitted  into 
the  frame  of  the  sentence,  but  wedged  in  so  as  directly 
to  shatter  it.  If,  for  instance,  it  is  an  impertinent  thing 
to  interrupt  another  person  when  he  is  speaking,  it  is  no 
less  impertinent  to  interrupt  oneself.  But  all  bad,  care- 
less, and  hasty  authors,  who  scribble  with  the  bread 
actually  before  their  eyes,  use  this  style  of  writing  six 
times  on  a  page,  and  rejoice  in  it.  It  consists  in  —  it  is 
advisable  to  give  rule  and  example  together,  wherever 
it  is  possible  —  breaking  up  one  phrase  in  order  to  glue 
in  another.  Nor  is  it  merely  out  of  laziness  that  they 
write  thus.  They  do  it  out  of  stupidity;  they  think 
there  is  a  charming  legerete  about  it;  that  it  gives  life  to 
what  they  say.  No  doubt  there  are  a  few  rare  cases 
where  such  a  form  of  sentence  may  be  pardonable. 

Few  write  in  the  way  in  which  an  architect  builds; 
who,  before  he  sets  to  work,  sketches  out  his  plan,  and 
thinks  it  over  down  to  its  smallest  details.  Nay,  most 
people  write  only  as  though  they  were  playing  dom- 
inoes; and  as  in  this  game  the  pieces  are  arranged  half 
by  design,  half  by  chance,  so  it  is  with  the  sequence  and 


322  ON  STYLE 

connection  of  their  sentences.  They  only  just  have  an 
idea  of  what  the  general  shape  of  their  work  will  be,  and 
of  the  aim  they  set  before  themselves.  Many  are  igno- 
rant even  of  this,  and  write  as  the  coral-insects  build; 
period  joins  to  period,  and  Lord  knows  what  the  author 
means. 

Life  nowadays  goes  at  a  gallop;  and  the  way  in  which 
this  affects  literature  is  to  make  it  extremely  superficial 
and  slovenly. 


ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT 

1778-1830 

In  the  advertisement  of  the  Paris  edition  of  Table-Talk,  Hazlitt 
offers  this  explanation  of  his  own  style:  "It  therefore  occurred 
to  me  as  possible  to  combine  the  advantages  of  these  two 
styles,  the  literary  and  the  conversational;  or  after  stating  and 
enforcing  some  leading  idea,  to  follow  it  up  by  such  observa- 
tions and  reflections  as  would  probably  suggest  themselves  in 
discussing  the  same  question  in  company  with  others.  This 
seemed  to  me  to  promise  a  greater  variety  and  richness,  and 
perhaps  a  greater  sincerity,  than  could  be  attained  by  a  more 
precise  and  scholastic  method.  The  same  consideration  had  an 
influence  on  the  familiarity  and  conversational  idiom  of  the 
style  I  have  used.  How  far  the  plan  was  feasible,  or  how  far  I 
have  succeeded  in  the  execution  of  it  must  be  left  to  others  to 
decide.  I  am  also  afraid  of  having  too  frequently  attempted  to 
give  a  popular  air  and  effect  to  subtle  distinctions  and  trains 
of  thought;  so  that  I  shall  be  considered  as  too  metaphysical 
by  the  careless  reader,  while  by  the  more  severe  and  scru- 
pulous inquirer  my  style  will  be  complained  of  as  too  light  and 
desultory.  To  all  this  I  can  only  answer  that  I  have  done  not 
what  I  wished,  but  the  best  I  could  do;  and  I  heartily  wish  it 
had  been  better." 

Few  English  writers  are  entitled  to  speak  with  greater 
authority  on  the  style  that  combines  the  advantages  of  the 
"literary"  and  the  "conversational." 

IT  is  not  easy  to  write  a  familiar  style.  Many  people 
mistake  a  familiar  for  a  vulgar  style,  and  suppose 
that  to  write  without  affectation  is  to  write  at  random. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  nothing  that  requires  more 
precision,  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  purity  of  expression,  than 
the  style  I  am  speaking  of.    It  utterly  rejects  not  only 


324  ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

all  unmeaning  pomp,  but  all  low,  cant  phrases,  and 
loose,  unconnected,  slipshod  allusions.    It  is  not  to  take 
the  first  word  that  offers,  but  the  best  word  in  common 
use;  it  is  not  to  throw  words  together  in  any  combina- 
tions we  please,  but  to  follow  and  avail  ourselves  of  the 
true  idiom  of  the  language.   To  write  a  genuine  familiar 
or  truly  English  style,  is  to  write  as  any  one  would 
speak  in  common  conversation,  who  had  a  thorough 
command  and  choice  of  words,  or  who  could  discourse 
with    ease,    force,    and    perspicuity,    setting    aside    all 
pedantic  and  oratorical  flourishes.    Or  to  give  another 
illustration,  to  write  naturally  is  the  same  thing  in  re- 
gard to  common  conversation,  as  to  read  naturally  is  in 
regard  to  common  speech.    It  does  not  follow  that  it  is 
an  easy  thing  to  give  the  true  accent  and  inflection  to  the 
words  you  utter,  because  you  do  not  attempt  to  rise 
above  the  level  of  ordinary  life  and  colloquial  speaking. 
You  do  not  assume  indeed  the  solemnity  of  the  pulpit, 
or  the  tone  of  stage-declamation:  neither  are  you  at 
liberty  to  gabble  on  at  a  venture,  without  emphasis  or 
discretion,  or  to  resort  to  vulgar  dialect  or  clownish 
pronunciation.    You  must  steer  a  middle  course.    You 
are  tied  down  to  a  given  and  appropriate  articulation, 
which  is  determined  by  the  habitual  associations  be- 
tween sense  and  sound,  and  which  you  can  only  hit  by 
entering  into  the  author's  meaning,  as  you  must  find 
the  proper  words  and  style  to  express  yourself  by  fixing 
your  thoughts  on  the  subject  you  have  to  write  about. 
Any  one  may  mouth  out  a  passage  with  a  theatrical 
cadence,  or  get  upon  stilts  to  tell  his  thoughts:  but  to 
write  or  speak  with  propriety  and  simplicity  is  a  more 
difficult  task.   Thus  it  is  easy  to  affect  a  pompous  style, 
to  use  a  word  twice  as  big  as  the  thing  you  want  to  ex- 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  315 

press:  it  is  not  so  easy  to  pitch  upon  the  very  word  that 
exactly  fits  it.  Out  of  eight  or  ten  words  equally  com- 
mon, equally  intelligible,  with  nearly  equal  pretensions, 
it  is  a  matter  of  some  nicety  and  discrimination  to  pick 
out  the  very  one,  the  preferableness  of  which  is  scarcely 
perceptible,  but  decisive.  The  reason  why  I  object  to 
Dr.  Johnson's  style  is,  that  there  is  no  discrimination, 
no  selection,  no  variety  in  it.  He  uses  none  but  "tall, 
opaque  words,"  taken  from  the  "first  row  of  the  ru- 
bric":—  words  with  the  greatest  number  of  syllables, 
or  Latin  phrases  with  merely  English  terminations.  If 
a  fine  style  depended  on  this  sort  of  arbitrary  preten- 
sion, it  would  be  fair  to  judge  of  an  author's  elegance 
by  the  measurement  of  his  words,  and  the  substitution 
of  foreign  circumlocutions  (with  no  precise  associations) 
for  the  mother-tongue.1  How  simple  is  it  to  be  dignified 
without  ease,  to  be  pompous  without  meaning!  Surely, 
it  is  but  a  mechanical  rule  for  avoiding  what  is  low  to  be 
always  pedantic  and  affected.  It  is  clear  you  cannot  use 
a  vulgar  English  word,  if  you  never  use  a  common 
English  word  at  all.  A  fine  tact  is  shewn  in  adhering  to 
those  which  are  perfectly  common,  and  yet  never  falling 
into  any  expressions  which  are  debased  by  disgusting 
circumstances,  or  which  owe  their  signification  and  point 
to  technical  or  professional  allusions.  A  truly  natural  or 
familiar  style  can  never  be  quaint  or  vulgar,  for  this 
reason,  that  it  is  of  universal  force  and  applicability, 
and  that  quaintness  and  vulgarity  arise  out  of  the  imme- 
diate connection  of  certain  words  with  coarse  and  dis- 

1  I  have  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  an  author,  who  makes  it  a  rule 
never  to  admit  a  monosyllable  into  his  vapid  verse.  Yet  the  charm 
and  sweetness  of  Marlowe's  lines  depended  often  on  their  being  made 
up  almost  entirely  of  monosyllables.  —  Author. 


326  ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

agreeable,  or  with  confined  ideas.  The  last  form  what 
we  understand  by  cant  or  slang  phrases.  —  To  give  an 
example  of  what  is  not  very  clear  in  the  general  state- 
ment. I  should  say  that  the  phrase  To  cut  with  a  knife, 
or  To  cut  a  piece  of  wood,  is  perfectly  free  from  vulgarity, 
because  it  is  perfectly  common:  but  to  cut  an  acquaint- 
ance is  not  quite  unexceptionable,  because  it  is  not 
perfectly  common  or  intelligible,  and  has  hardly  yet 
escaped  out  of  the  limits  of  slang  phraseology.  I  should 
hardly  therefore  use  the  word  in  this  sense  without 
putting  it  in  italics  as  a  license  of  expression,  to  be  re- 
ceived cum  grano  salis.  All  provincial  or  bye-phrases 
come  under  the  same  mark  of  reprobation  —  all  such  as 
the  writer  transfers  to  the  page  from  his  fire-side  or  a 
particular  coterie,  or  that  he  invents  for  his  own  sole  use 
and  convenience.  I  conceive  that  words  are  like  money, 
not  the  worse  for  being  common,  but  that  it  is  the  stamp 
of  custom  alone  that  gives  them  circulation  or  value.  I 
am  fastidious  in  this  respect,  and  would  almost  as  soon 
coin  the  currency  of  the  realm  as  counterfeit  the  King's 
English.  I  never  invented  or  gave  a  new  and  unau- 
thorised meaning  to  any  word  but  one  single  one  (the 
term  impersonal  applied  to  feelings)  and  that  was  in  an 
abstruse  metaphysical  discussion  to  express  a  very 
difficult  distinction.  I  have  been  (I  know)  loudly  ac- 
cused of  revelling  in  vulgarisms  and  broken  English. 
I  cannot  speak  to  that  point:  but  so  far  I  plead  guilty 
to  the  determined  use  of  acknowledged  idioms  and  com- 
mon elliptical  expressions.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  critics 
in  question  know  the  one  from  the  other,  that  is,  can 
distinguish  any  medium  between  formal  pedantry  and 
the  most  barbarous  solecism.  As  an  author,  I  en- 
deavour to  employ  plain  words  and  popular  modes  of 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  327 

construction,  as  were  I  a  chapman  and  dealer,  I  should 
common  weights  and  measures. 

The  proper  force  of  words  lies  not  in  the  words  them- 
selves, but  in  their  application.  A  word  may  be  a  fine- 
sounding  word,  of  an  unusual  length,  and  very  imposing 
from  its  learning  and  novelty,  and  yet  in  the  connec- 
tion in  which  it  is  introduced,  may  be  quite  pointless 
and  irrelevant.  It  is  not  pomp  or  pretension,  but  the 
adaptation  of  the  expression  to  the  idea  that  clenches  a 
writer's  meaning:  —  as  it  is  not  the  size  or  glossiness  of 
the  materials,  but  their  being  fitted  each  to  its  place, 
that  gives  strength  to  the  arch;  or  as  the  pegs  and  nails 
are  as  necessary  to  the  support  of  the  building  as  the 
larger  timbers,  and  more  so  than  the  mere  shewy,  un- 
substantial ornaments.  I  hate  any  thing  that  occupies 
more  space  than  it  is  worth.  I  hate  to  see  a  load  of 
band-boxes  go  along  the  street,  and  I  hate  to  see  a 
parcel  of  big  words  without  any  thing  in  them.  A  per- 
son who  does  not  deliberately  dispose  of  all  his  thoughts 
alike  in  cumbrous  draperies  and  flimsy  disguises,  may 
strike  out  twenty  varieties  of  familiar  every-day  lan- 
guage, each  coming  somewhat  nearer  to  the  feeling  he 
wants  to  convey,  and  at  last  not  hit  upon  that  particular 
and  only  one,  which  may  be  said  to  be  identical  with  the 
exact  impression  in  his  mind.  This  would  seem  to  shew 
that  Mr.  Cobbett  is  hardly  right  in  saying  that  the  first 
word  that  occurs  is  always  the  best.  It  may  be  a  very 
good  one;  and  yet  a  better  may  present  itself  on  reflec- 
tion or  from  time  to  time.  It  should  be  suggested  nat- 
urally, however,  and  spontaneously,  from  a  fresh  and 
lively  conception  of  the  subiect.  We  seldom  succeed  by 
trying  at  improvement,  or  by  merely  substituting  one 
word  for  another  that  we  are  not  satisfied  with,  as  we 


328  ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

cannot  recollect  the  name  of  a  place  or  person  by  merely 
plaguing  ourselves  about  it.  We  wander  farther  from  the 
point  by  persisting  in  a  wrong  scent;  but  it  starts  up  acci- 
dentally in  the  memory  when  we  least  expected  it,  by 
touching  some  link  in  the  chain  of  previous  association. 
There  are  those  who  hoard  up  and  make  a  cautious 
display  of  nothing  but  rich  and  rare  phraseology;  — 
ancient  medals,  obscure  coins,  and  Spanish  pieces  of 
eight.  They  are  very  curious  to  inspect;  but  I  myself 
would  neither  offer  nor  take  them  in  the  course  of  ex- 
change. A  sprinkling  of  archaisms  is  not  amiss;  but  a 
tissue  of  obsolete  expressions  is  more  fit  for  keep  than 
wear.  I  do  not  say  I  would  not  use  any  phrase  that  had 
been  brought  into  fashion  before  the  middle  or  the  end 
of  the  last  century;  but  I  should  be  shy  of  using  any 
that  had  not  been  employed  by  any  approved  author 
during  the  whole  of  that  time.  Words,  like  clothes,  get 
old-fashioned,  or  mean  and  ridiculous,  when  they  have 
been  for  some  time  laid  aside.  Mr.  Lamb  is  the  only 
imitator  of  old  English  style  I  can  read  with  pleasure; 
and  he  is  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his 
authors,  that  the  idea  of  imitation  is  almost  done  away. 
There  is  an  inward  unction,  a  marrowy  vein  both  in  the 
thought  and  feeling,  an  intuition,  deep  and  lively,  of  his 
subject,  that  carries  off  any  quaintness  or  awkwardness 
arising  from  an  antiquated  style  and  dress.  The  matter 
is  completely  his  own,  though  the  manner  is  assumed. 
Perhaps  his  ideas  are  altogether  so  marked  and  individ- 
ual, as  to  require  their  point  and  pungency  to  be  neu- 
tralised by  the  affectation  of  a  singular  but  traditional 
form  of  conveyance.  Tricked  out  in  the  prevailing 
costume,  they  would  probably  seem  more  startling  and 
out  of  the  way.   The  old  English  authors,  Burton,  Ful- 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  329 

ler,  Coryate,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  are  a  kind  of  mediators 
between  us  and  the  more  eccentric  and  whimsical  mod- 
ern, reconciling  us  to  his  peculiarities.  I  do  not  however 
know  how  far  this  is  the  case  or  not,  till  he  condescends 
to  write  like  one  of  us.  I  must  confess  that  what  I  like 
best  of  his  papers  under  the  signature  of  Elia  (still  I  do 
not  presume,  amidst  such  excellence,  to  decide  what  is 
most  excellent)  is  the  account  of  Mrs.  Battle's  Opinions 
on  Whist,  which  is  also  the  most  free  from  obsolete 
allusions  and  turns  of  expression  — 

"A  well  of  native  English  undented. " 

To  those  acquainted  with  his  admired  prototypes,  these 
Essays  of  the  ingenious  and  highly  gifted  author  have 
the  same  sort  of  charm  and  relish,  that  Erasmus's  Col- 
loquies or  a  fine  piece  of  modern  Latin  have  to  the 
classical  scholar.  Certainly,  I  do  not  know  any  bor- 
rowed pencil  that  has  more  power  or  felicity  of  execution 
than  the  one  of  which  I  have  here  been  speaking. 

It  is  as  easy  to  write  a  gaudy  style  without  ideas,  as  it 
is  to  spread  a  pallet  of  shewy  colours,  or  to  smear  in  a 
flaunting  transparency.  "What  do  you  read?"  — 
"Words,  words,  words."  —  "What  is  the  matter  ?  "  — 
" Nothing,"  it  might  be  answered.  The  florid  style  is  the 
reverse  of  the  familiar.  The  last  is  employed  as  an  un- 
varnished medium  to  convey  ideas;  the  first  is  resorted 
to  as  a  spangled  veil  to  conceal  the  want  of  them. 
When  there  is  nothing  to  be  set  down  but  words,  it 
costs  little  to  have  them  fine.  Look  through  the  dic- 
tionary, and  cull  out  a  florilegium,  rival  the  tulippoma- 
nia.  Rouge  high  enough,  and  never  mind  the  natural 
complexion.  The  vulgar,  who  are  not  in  the  secret,  will 
admire  the  look  of  preternatural  health  and  vigour;  and 


33o  ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

the  fashionable,  who  regard  only  appearances,  will  be 
delighted  with  the  imposition.  Keep  to  your  sounding 
generalities,  your  tinkling  phrases,  and  all  will  be  well. 
Swell  out  an  unmeaning  truism  to  a  perfect  tympany  of 
style.  A  thought,  a  distinction  is  the  rock  on  which  all 
this  brittle  cargo  of  verbiage  splits  at  once.  Such  writers 
have  merely  verbal  imaginations,  that  retain  nothing 
but  words.  Or  their  puny  thoughts  have  dragon-wings, 
all  green  and  gold.  They  soar  far  above  the  vulgar  fail- 
ing of  the  Sermo  humi  obrepens  —  their  most  ordinary 
speech  is  never  short  of  an  hyperbole,  splendid,  impos- 
ing, vague,  incomprehensible,  magniloquent,  a  cento  of 
sounding  commonplaces.  If  some  of  us,  whose  "ambi- 
tion is  more  lowly,"  pry  a  little  too  narrowly  into  nooks 
and  corners  to  pick  up  a  number  of  "unconsidered 
trifles,"  they  never  once  direct  their  eyes  or  lift  their 
hands  to  seize  on  any  but  the  most  gorgeous,  tarnished, 
thread-bare  patch-work  set  of  phrases,  the  left-off 
finery  of  poetic  extravagance,  transmitted  down  through 
successive  generations  of  barren  pretenders.  If  they 
criticise  actors  and  actresses,  a  huddled  phantasmagoria 
of  feathers,  spangles,  floods  of  light,  and  oceans  of 
sound  float  before  their  morbid  sense,  which  they  paint 
in  the  style  of  Ancient  Pistol.  Not  a  glimpse  can  you 
get  of  the  merits  or  defects  of  the  performers:  they  are 
hidden  in  a  profusion  of  barbarous  epithets  and  wilful 
rhodomontade.  Our  hypercritics  are  not  thinking  of 
these  little  fantoccini  beings  — 

"That  strut  and  fret  their  hour  upon  the  stage"  — 

but  of  tall  phantoms  of  words,  abstractions,  genera  and 
species,  sweeping  clauses,  periods  that  unite  the  Poles, 
forced  alliterations,  astounding  antitheses  — 
"And^on  their  pens  Fustian  sits  plumed." 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT  331 

If  they  describe  kings  and  queens,  it  is  an  Eastern 
pageant.  The  Coronation  at  either  House  is  nothing  to 
it.  We  get  at  four  repeated  images  —  a  curtain,  a 
throne,  a  sceptre,  and  a  foot-stool.  These  are  with 
them  the  wardrobe  of  a  lofty  imagination;  and  they 
turn  their  servile  strains  to  servile  uses.  Do  we  read  a 
description  of  pictures?  It  is  not  a  reflection  of  tones 
and  hues  which  "nature's  own  sweet  and  cunning  hand 
laid  on,"  but  piles  of  precious  stones,  rubies,  pearls, 
emeralds,  Golconda's  mines,  and  all  the  blazonry  of  art. 
Such  persons  are  in  fact  besotted  with  words,  and  their 
brains  are  turned  with  the  glittering,  but  empty  and 
sterile  phantoms  of  things.  Personifications,  capital 
letters,  seas  of  sunbeams,  visions  of  glory,  shining  in- 
scriptions, the  figures  of  a  transparency,  Britannia  with 
her  shield,  or  Hope  leaning  on  an  anchor,  make  up  their 
stock  in  trade.  They  may  be  considered  as  hieroglyphi- 
cal  writers.  Images  stand  out  in  their  minds  isolated 
and  important  merely  in  themselves,  without  any 
ground- word  of  feeling  —  there  is  no  context  in  their 
imaginations.  Words  affect  them  in  the  same  way,  by 
the  mere  sound,  that  is,  by  their  possible,  not  by  their 
actual  application  to  the  subject  in  hand.  They  are 
fascinated  by  first  appearances,  and  have  no  sense  of 
consequences.  Nothing  more  is  meant  by  them  than 
meets  the  ear:  they  understand  or  feel  nothing  more 
than  meets  their  eye.  The  web  and  texture  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  of  the  heart  of  man,  is  a  mystery  to  them: 
they  have  no  faculty  that  strikes  a  chord  in  unison  with 
it.  They  cannot  get  beyond  the  daubings  of  fancy,  the 
varnish  of  sentiment.  Objects  are  not  linked  to  feelings, 
words  to  things,  but  images  revolve  in  splendid  mock- 
ery,   words    represent    themselves    in    their    strange 


33*  ON  FAMILIAR  STYLE 

rhapsodies.  The  categories  of  such  a  mind  are  pride  and 
ignorance  —  pride  in  outside  show,  to  which  they  sacri- 
fice every  thing,  and  ignorance  of  the  true  worth  and 
hidden  structure  both  of  words  and  things.  With  a 
sovereign  contempt  for  what  is  familiar  and  natural, 
they  are  the  slaves  of  vulgar  affectation  —  of  a  routine 
of  high-flown  phrases.  Scorning  to  imitate  realities,  they 
are  unable  to  invent  any  thing,  to  strike  out  one  original 
idea.  They  are  not  copyists  of  nature,  it  is  true:  but 
they  are  the  poorest  of  all  plagiarists,  the  plagiarists  of 
words.  All  is  far-fetched,  dear-bought,  artificial, 
oriental  in  subject  and  allusion:  all  is  mechanical,  con- 
ventional, vapid,  formal,  pedantic  in  style  and  execu- 
tion. They  startle  and  confound  the  understanding  of 
the  reader,  by  the  remoteness  and  obscurity  of  their 
illustrations:  they  soothe  the  ear  by  the  monotony  of 
the  same  everlasting  round  of  circuitous  metaphors. 
They  are  the  mock-school  in  poetry  and  prose.  They 
flounder  about  between  fustian  in  expression,  and 
bathos  in  sentiment.  They  tantalise  the  fancy,  but 
never  reach  the  head  nor  touch  the  heart.  Their  Temple 
of  Fame  is  like  a  shadowy  structure  raised  by  Dulness 
to  Vanity,  or  like  Cowper's  description  of  the  Empress 
of  Russia's  palace  of  ice,  as  "worthless  as  in  shew  'twas 
glittering"  — 

"  It  smiled,  and  it  was  cold!  " 


ON  STYLE  i 

ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH 

1863- 

"On  Style"  is  one  of  a  series  of  lectures  delivered  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge  in  1913-1914.  These  were  later  pub- 
lished as  a  volume  entitled  On  the  Art  of  Writing.  The  author 
has  told  his  readers  that  he  preferred  to  leave  the  lectures 
virtually  as  he  delivered  them  rather  than  to  work  them  over 
into  "a  smooth  treatise."  .  .  .  "they  will  be  truer  to  life;  and 
so  may  experimentally  enforce  their  preaching,  that  the  Art  of 
Writing  is  a  living  business." 

Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch  is  one  of  the  relatively  few  novel- 
ists who  have  been  called  to  university  chairs  of  English. 

SHOULD  Providence,  Gentlemen,  destine  any  one 
of  you  to  write  books  for  his  living,  he  will  find  ex- 
perimentally true  what  I  here  promise  him,  that  few 
pleasures  sooner  cloy  than  reading  what  the  reviewers 
say.  This  promise  I  hand  on  with  the  better  confidence 
since  it  was  endorsed  for  me  once  in  conversation  by 
that  eminently  good  man  the  late  Henry  Sidgwick;  v/ho 
added,  however,  "Perhaps  I  ought  to  make  a  single 
exception.  There  was  a  critic  who  called  one  of  my 
books  '  epoch-making.'  Being  anonymous,  he  would 
have  been  hard  to  find  and  thank,  perhaps;  but  I  ought 
to  have  made  the  effort." 

May  I  follow  up  this  experience  of  his  with  one  of  my 
own,  as  a  preface  or  brief  apology  for  this  lecture? 
Short-lived  as  is  the  author's  joy  in  his  critics,  far-spent 
as  may  be  his  hope  of  fame,  mournful  his  consent  with 

1  English  copyright  by  Cambridge  University  Press,  and  American 
copyright  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.     Reprinted  by  permission. 


334  ON  STYLE 

Sir  Thomas  Browne  that  "  there  is  nothing  immortal 
but  immortality,"  he  cannot  hide  from  certain  san- 
guine men  of  business,  who  in  England  call  themselves 
"Press-Cutting  Agencies,"  in  America  "Press-Clipping 
Bureaus,"  and,  as  each  successive  child  of  his  invention 
comes  to  birth,  unbecomingly  presume  in  him  an  al- 
most virginal  trepidation.  "Your  book,"  they  write 
falsely,  "is  exciting  much  comment.  May  we  collect 
and  send  you  notices  of  it  appearing  in  the  World's 
Press?  We  submit  a  specimen  cutting  with  our  terms; 
and  are,  dear  Sir,"  etc. 

Now,  although  steadily  unresponsive  to  this  wile,  I 
am  sometimes  guilty  of  taking  the  enclosed  specimen 
review  and  thrusting  it  for  preservation  among  the 
scarcely  less  deciduous  leaves  of  the  book  it  was  written 
to  appraise.  So  it  happened  that  having  this  vacation, 
to  dust  —  not  to  read  —  a  line  of  obsolete  or  obsoles- 
cent works  on  a  shelf,  I  happened  on  a  review  signed  by 
no  smaller  a  man  than  Mr.  Gilbert  Chesterton  and  in- 
forming the  world  that  the  author  of  my  obsolete  book 
was  full  of  good  stories  as  a  kindly  uncle,  but  had  a 
careless  or  impatient  way  of  stopping  short  and  leaving 
his  readers  to  guess  what  they  most  wanted  to  know: 
that,  reaching  the  last  chapter,  or  what  he  chose  to 
make  the  last  chapter,  instead  of  winding  up  and  telling 
"how  everybody  lived  ever  after,"  he  (so  to  speak)  slid 
you  off  his  avuncular  knee  with  a  blessing  and  the  re- 
mark that  nine  o'clock  was  striking  and  all  good  chil- 
dren should  be  in  their  beds. 

That  criticism  has  haunted  me  during  the  vacation. 
Looking  back  on  a  course  of  lectures  which  I  deemed  to 
be  accomplished;  correcting  them  in  print;  revising 
them  with  all  the  nervousness  of  a  beginner;  I  have 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         33s 

seemed  to  hear  you  complain  —  "He  has  exhorted  us  to 
write  accurately,  appropriately;  to  eschew  Jargon;  to  be 
bold  and  essay  Verse.  He  has  insisted  that  Literature  is 
a  living  art,  to  be  practised.  But  just  what  we  most 
needed  he  has  not  told.  At  the  final  doorway  to  the 
secret  he  turned  his  back  and  left  us.  Accuracy,  pro- 
priety, perspicuity  —  these  we  may  achieve.  But  where 
has  he  helped  us  to  write  with  beauty,  with  charm,  with 
distinction?  Where  has  he  given  us  rules  for  what  is 
called  Style  in  short?  —  having  attained  which  an  au- 
thor may  count  himself  set  up  in  business." 

Thus,  Gentlemen,  with  my  mind's  ear  I  heard  you 
reproaching  me.  I  beg  you  to  accept  what  follows  for 
my  apology. 

To  begin  with,  let  me  plead  that  you  have  been  told  of 
one  or  two  things  which  Style  is  not;  which  have  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  Style,  though  sometimes  vulgarly 
mistaken  for  it.  Style,  for  example,  is  not  —  can  never 
be  —  extraneous  Ornament.  You  remember,  may  be, 
the  Persian  lover  whom  I  quoted  to  you  out  of  Newman: 
how  to  convey  his  passion  he  sought  a  professional 
letter-writer  and  purchased  a  vocabulary  charged  with 
ornament,  wherewith  to  attract  the  fair  one  as  with  a 
basket  of  jewels.  Well,  in  this  extraneous,  professional, 
purchased  ornamentation,  you  have  something  which 
Style  is  not:  and  if  you  here  require  a  practical  rule  of 
me,  I  will  present  you  with  this:  "Whenever  you  feel  an 
impulse  to  perpetrate  a  piece  of  exceptionally  fine  writ- 
ing, obey  it  —  whole-heartedly  —  and  delete  it  before 
sending  your  manuscript  to  press.  Murder  your  dar- 
lings." 

But  let  me  plead  further  that  you  have  not  been  left 
altogether  without  clue  to  the  secret  of  what  Style  is. 


336  ON  STYLE 

That  you  must  master  the  secret  for  yourselves  lay 
implicit  in  our  bargain,  and  you  were  never  promised 
that  a  writer's  training  would  be  easy.  Yet  a  clue  was 
certainly  put  in  your  hands  when,  having  insisted  that 
Literature  is  a  living  art,  I  added  that  therefore  it  must 
be  personal  and  of  its  essence  personal. 

This  goes  very  deep:  it  conditions  all  our  criticism  of 
art.  Yet  it  conceals  no  mystery.  You  may  see  its  mean- 
ing most  easily  and  clearly,  perhaps,  by  contrasting 
Science  and  Art  at  their  two  extremes  —  say  Pure 
Mathematics  with  Acting.  Science  as  a  rule  deals  with 
things,  Art  with  man's  thought  and  emotion  about 
things.  In  Pure  Mathematics  things  are  rarefied  into 
ideas,  numbers,  concepts,  but  still  farther  and  farther 
away  from  the  individual  man.  Two  and  two  make 
four,  and  fourpence  is  not  ninepence  (or  at  any  rate  four 
is  not  nine)  whether  Alcibiades  or  Cleon  keep  the  tally. 
In  Acting  on  the  other  hand  almost  everything  depends 
on  personal  interpretation  —  on  the  gesture,  the  walk, 
the  gaze,  the  tone  of  a  Siddons,  the  ruse  smile  of  a 
Coquelin,  the  exquisite,  vibrant  intonation  of  a  Bern- 
hardt. "English  Art?  "  exclaimed  Whistler,  "  there  is 
no  such  thing!  Art  is  art  and  mathematics  is  mathe- 
matics." Whistler  erred.  Precisely  because  Art  is  Art, 
and  Mathematics  is  Mathematics  and  a  Science,  Art 
being  Art  can  be  English  or  French;  and,  more  than 
this,  must  be  the  personal  expression  of  an  Englishman 
or  a  Frenchman,  as  a  "Constable"  differs  from  a 
"Corot"  and  a  "Whistler"  from  both.  Surely  I  need 
not  labour  this.  But  what  is  true  of  the  extremes  of  Art 
and  Science  is  true  also,  though  sometimes  less  recognis- 
ably  true,  of  the  mean:  and  where  they  meet  and  seem 
to  conflict  (as  in  History)  the  impact  is  that  of  the  per- 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH  337 

sonal  or  individual  mind  upon  universal  truth,  and  the 
question  becomes  whether  what  happened  in  the  Sici- 
lian Expedition,  or  at  the  trial  of  Charles  I,  can  be  set 
forth  naked  as  an  algebraical  sum,  serene  in  its  cer- 
tainty, indifferent  to  opinion,  uncoloured  in  the  telling 
as  in  the  hearing  by  sympathy  or  dislike,  by  passion  or 
by  character.  I  doubt,  while  we  should  strive  in  history 
as  in  all  things  to  be  fair,  if  history  can  be  written  in 
that  colourless  way,  to  interest  men  in  human  doings. 
I  am  sure  that  nothing  which  lies  further  towards  im- 
aginative, creative  Art  can  be  written  in  that  way. 

It  follows  then  that  Literature,  being  by  its  nature 
personal,  must  be  by  its  nature  almost  infinitely  various. 
"Two  persons  cannot  be  the  authors  of  the  sounds 
which  strike  our  ear;  and  as  they  cannot  be  speaking 
one  and  the  same  speech,  neither  can  they  be  writing 
one  and  the  same  lecture  or  discourse."  Qiwt  homines 
tot  sententiae.  You  may  translate  that,  if  you  will, 
"Every  man  of  us  constructs  his  sentences  differently"; 
and  if  there  be  indeed  any  quarrel  between  Literature 
and  Science  (as  I  never  can  see  why  there  should  be),  I 
for  one  will  readily  grant  Science  all  her  cold  superiority, 
her  ease  in  Sion  with  universal  facts,  so  it  be  mine  to 
serve  among  the  multifarious  race  who  have  to  adjust, 
as  best  they  may,  Science's  cold  conclusions  (and  much 
else)  to  the  brotherly  give-and-take  of  human  life. 

Quicquid  agunt  homines ',  votum,  timor,  iray  voluptas. 
...  Is  it  possible,  Gentlemen,  that  you  can  have  read 
one,  two,  three,  or  more  of  the  acknowledged  master- 
pieces of  literature  without  having  it  borne  in  on  you 
that  they  are  great  because  they  are  alive,  and  traffic 
not  with  cold  celestial  certainties,  but  with  men's  hopes, 
aspirations,  doubts,  loves,  hates,  breakings  of  the  heart; 


338  ON  STYLE 

the  glory  and  vanity  of  human  endeavour,  the  tran- 
sience of  beauty,  the  capricious  uncertain  lease  on  which 
you  and  I  hold  life,  the  dark  coast  to  which  we  inevi- 
tably steer;  all  that  amuses  or  vexes,  all  that  gladdens, 
saddens,  maddens  us  men  and  women  on  this  brief  and 
mutable  traject  which  yet  must  be  home  for  a  while,  the 
anchorage  of  our  hearts?     For  an  instance:  — 

Here  lies  a  most  beautiful  lady, 

Light  of  step  and  heart  was  she: 
I  think  she  was  the  most  beautiful  lady 

That  ever  was  in  the  West  Country. 

But  beauty  vanishes,  beauty  passes, 

However  rare,  rare  it  be; 
And  when  I  crumble  who  shall  remember 

That  lady  of  the  West  Country? 1 

Or  take  a  critic  —  a  literary  critic  —  such  as  Samuel 
Johnson,  of  whom  we  are  used  to  think  as  of  a  man  arti- 
ficial in  phrase  and  pedantic  in  judgment.  He  lives,  and 
why?  Because,  if  you  test  his  criticism,  he  never  saw 
literature  but  as  a  part  of  life,  nor  would  allow  in  litera- 
ture what  was  false  to  life,  as  he  saw  it.  He  could  be 
wrong-headed,  perverse;  could  damn  Milton  because  he 
hated  Milton's  politics;  on  any  question  of  passion  or 
prejudice  could  make  injustice  his  daily  food.  But  he 
could  not,  even  in  a  friend's  epitaph,  let  pass  a  phrase 
(however  well  turned)  which  struck  him  as  empty  of 
life  or  false  to  it.  All  Boswell  testifies  to  this:  and  this  is 
why  Samuel  Johnson  survives. 

Now  let  me  carry  this  contention  —  that  all  Litera- 
ture is  personal  and  therefore  various  —  into  a  field 

1  Walter  de  la  Mare. 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         339 

much  exploited  by  the  pedant,  and  fenced  about  with 
many  notice-boards  and  public  warnings.  "Neologisms 
not  allowed  here."  "All  persons  using  slang,  or  trespass- 
ing in  fur  suit  oj  originality .  .  .  ." 

Well,  I  answer  these  notice-boards  by  saying  that, 
literature  being  personal,  and  men  various  —  and  even 
the  Oxford  English  Dictionary  being  no  Canonical  book 
—  man's  use  or  defiance  of  the  dictionary  depends  for 
its  justification  on  nothing  but  his  success:  adding  that, 
since  it  takes  all  kinds  to  make  a  world,  or  a  literature, 
his  success  will  probably  depend  on  the  occasion.  A 
few  months  ago  I  found  myself  seated  at  a  bump-supper 
next  to  a  cheerful  youth  who,  towards  the  close,  sug- 
gested thoughtfully,  as  I  arose  to  make  a  speech,  that, 
the  bonfire  (which  of  course  he  called  the  "bonner") 
being  due  at  nine-thirty  o'clock,  there  was  little  more 
than  bare  time  left  for  "langers  and  godders."  It  cost 
me,  who  think  slowly,  some  seconds  to  interpret  that  by 
"langers"  he  meant  "Auld  Lang  Syne"  and  by  "god- 
ders" "God  Save  the  King."  I  thought  at  the  time, 
and  still  think,  and  will  maintain  against  any  school- 
master, that  the  neologisms  of  my  young  neighbour, 
though  not  to  be  recommended  for  essays  or  sermons, 
did  admirably  suit  the  time,  place,  and  occasion. 

Seeing  that  in  human  discourse,  infinitely  varied  as  it 
is,  so  much  must  ever  depend  on  who  speaks,  and  to 
whom,  in  what  mood  and  upon  what  occasion;  and  see- 
ing that  Literature  must  needs  take  account  of  all  man- 
ner of  writers,  audiences,  moods,  occasions,  I  hold  it  a 
sin  against  the  light  to  put  up  a  warning  against  any 
word  that  comes  to  us  in  the  fair  way  of  use  and  wont 
(as  "wire,"  for  instance,  for  a  telegram),  even  as  surely 
as  we  should  warn  off  hybrids  or  deliberately  pedantic 


34o  ON  STYLE 

impostors,  such  as  "antibody"  and  "picture-drome"; 
and  that,  generally,  it  is  better  to  err  on  the  side  of 
liberty  than  on  the  side  of  the  censor:  since  by  the 
manumitting  of  new  words  we  infuse  new  blood  into  a 
tongue  of  which  (or  we  have  learnt  nothing  from  Shake- 
speare's audacity)  our  first  pride  should  be  that  it  is 
flexible,  alive,  capable  of  responding  to  new  demands  of 
man's  untiring  quest  after  knowledge  and  experience. 
Not  because  it  was  an  ugly  thing  did  I  denounce  Jargon 
to  you,  the  other  day:  but  because  it  was  a  dead  thing, 
leading  nowhither,  meaning  naught.  There  is  wicked- 
ness in  human  speech,  sometimes.  You  will  detect  it  all 
the  better  for  having  ruled  out  what  is  naughty. 

Let  us  err,  then,  if  we  err,  on  the  side  of  liberty.  I 
came,  the  other  day,  upon  this  passage  in  Mr.  Frank 
Harris's  study  of  "The  Man  Shakespeare":  — 

In  the  last  hundred  years  the  language  of  Moliere  has 
grown  fourfold;  the  slang  of  the  studios  and  the  gutter  and  the 
laboratory,  of  the  engineering  school  and  the  dissecting  table, 
has  been  ransacked  for  special  terms  to  enrich  and  strengthen 
the  language  in  order  that  it  may  deal  easily  with  the  new 
thoughts.  French  is  now  a  superb  instrument,  while  English  is 
positively  poorer  than  it  was  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare, 
thanks  to  the  prudery  of  our  illiterate  middle  class.1 

Well,  let  us  not  lose  our  heads  over  this,  any  more 
than  over  other  prophecies  of  our  national  decadence. 
The  Oxford  English  Dictionary  has  not  yet  unfolded  the 
last  of  its  coils,  which  yet  are  ample  enough  to  enfold  us 

1  "An  oration,"  says  Quintilian,  "may  find  room  for  almost  any 
word  saving  a  few  indecent  ones  (quae  sunt  parum  verecunda)."  He 
adds  that  writers  of  the  Old  Comedy  were  often  commended  even  for 
these:  "but  it  is  enough  for  us  to  mind  our  present  business  —  sed 
nobis  nostrum  opus  intueri  sat  est."  —  Author. 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         341 

in  seven  words  for  every  three  an  active  man  can  grap- 
ple with.  Yet  the  warning  has  point,  and  a  particular 
point,  for  those  who  aspire  to  write  poetry:  as  Francis 
Thompson  has  noted  in  his  Essay  on  Shelley:  — 

Theoretically,  of  course,  one  ought  always  to  try  for  the 
best  word.  But  practically,  the  habit  of  excessive  care  in 
word-selection  frequently  results  in  loss  of  spontaneity;  and, 
still  worse,  the  habit  of  always  taking  the  best  word  too  easily 
becomes  the  habit  of  always  taking  the  most  ornate  word,  the 
word  most  removed  from  ordinary  speech.  In  consequence  of 
this,  poetic  diction  has  become  latterly  a  kaleidoscope,  and 
one's  chief  curiosity  is  as  to  the  precise  combinations  into 
which  the  pieces  will  be  shifted.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  certain 
band  of  words,  the  Praetorian  cohorts  of  Poetry,  whose  pre- 
scriptive aid  is  invoked  by  every  aspirant  to  the  poetic 
purple.  .  .  .  Against  these  it  is  time  some  banner  should  be 
raised.  ...  It  is  at  any  rate  curious  to  note  that  the  literary 
revolution  against  the  despotic  diction  of  Pope  seems  issuing, 
like  political  revolutions,  in  a  despotism  of  his  own  making; 

and  he  adds  a  note  that  this  is  the  more  surprising  to 
him  because  so  many  Victorian  poets  were  prose- 
writers  as  well. 

Now,  according  to  our  theory,  the  practice  of  prose  should 
maintain  fresh  and  comprehensive  a  poet's  diction,  should 
save  him  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  an  exclusive  coterie  of 
poetic  words.  It  should  react  upon  his  metrical  vocabulary  to 
its  beneficial  expansion,  by  taking  him  outside  his  aristo- 
cratic circle  of  language,  and  keeping  him  in  touch  with  the 
great  commonalty,  the  proletariat  of  speech.  For  it  is  with 
words  as  with  men:  constant  intermarriage  within  the  limits 
of  a  patrician  clan  begets  effete  refinement;  and  to  reinvigor- 
ate  the  stock,  its  veins  must  be  replenished  from  hardy 
plebeian  blood. 


342  ON  STYLE 

In  diction,  then,  let  us  acquire  all  the  store  we  can, 
rejecting  no  coin  for  its  minting  but  only  if  its  metal  be 
base.  So  shall  we  bring  out  of  our  treasuries  new  things 
and  old. 

Diction,  however,  is  but  a  part  of  Style,  and  perhaps 
not  the  most  important  part.  So  I  revert  to  the  larger 
question,  "What  is  Style?  What  its  to  tL  r\v  dvai,  its 
essence,  the  law  of  its  being?  " 

Now,  as  I  sat  down  to  write  this  lecture,  memory 
evoked  a  scene  and  with  the  scene  a  chance  word  of 
boyish  slang,  both  of  which  may  seem  to  you  irrelevant 
until,  or  unless,  I  can  make  you  feel  how  they  hold  for 
me  the  heart  of  the  matter. 

I  once  happened  to  be  standing  in  a  corner  of  a  ball- 
room when  there  entered  the  most  beautiful  girl  these 
eyes  have  ever  seen  or  now  —  since  they  grow  dull  — 
ever  will  see.  It  was,  I  believe,  her  first  ball,  and  by 
some  freak  or  in  some  premonition  she  wore  black:  and 
not  pearls  —  which,  I  am  told,  maidens  are  wont  to 
wear  on  these  occasions  —  but  one  crescent  of  diamonds 
in  her  black  hair.  Et  vera  incessu  patuit  dea.  Here,  I  say, 
was  absolute  beauty.     It  startled. 

I  think  she  was  the  most  beautiful  lady 
That  ever  was  in  the  West  Country. 
But  beauty  vanishes,  beauty  passes.  .  .  . 

She  died  a  year  or  two  later.  She  may  have  been  too 
beautiful  to  live  long.  I  have  a  thought  that  she  may 
also  have  been  too  good. 

For  I  saw  her  with  the  crowd  about  her:  I  saw  led  up 
and  presented  among  others  the  man  who  was  to  be,  for 
a  few  months,  her  husband:  and  then,  as  the  men 
bowed,    pencilling    on    their    programmes,    over    their 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         343 

shoulders  I  saw  her  eyes  travel  to  an  awkward  young 
naval  cadet  (Do  you  remember  Crossjay  in  Meredith's 
The  Egoist?  It  was  just  such  a  boy)  who  sat  abashed 
and  glowering  sulkily  beside  me  on  the  far  bench. 
Promptly  with  a  laugh,  she  advanced,  claimed  him,  and 
swept  him  off  into  the  first  waltz. 

When  it  was  over  he  came  back,  a  trifle  flushed,  and  I 
felicitated  him;  my  remark  (which  I  forget)  being  no 
doubt  "just  the  sort  of  banality,  you  know,  one  does 
come  out  with" — as  maybe  that  the  British  Navy 
kept  its  old  knack  of  cutting  out.  But  he  looked  at  me 
almost  in  tears  and  blurted,  "It  isn't  her  beauty,  sir. 
You  saw?   It's  —  it's  —  my  God,  it's  the  style!  " 

Now  you  may  think  that  a  somewhat  cheap,  or  at  any 
rate  inadequate,  cry  of  the  heart  in  my  young  seaman; 
as  you  may  think  it  inadequate  in  me,  and  moreover  a 
trifle  capricious,  to  assure  you  (as  I  do)  that  the  first  and 
last  secret  of  a  good  Style  consists  in  thinking  with  the 
heart  as  well  as  with  the  head. 

But  let  us  philosophise  a  little.  You  have  been  told, 
I  daresay  often  enough,  that  the  business  of  writing 
demands  two  —  the  author  and  the  reader.  Add  to  this 
what  is  equally  obvious,  that  the  obligation  of  courtesy 
rests  first  with  the  author,  who  invites  the  seance,  and 
commonly  charges  for  it.  What  follows,  but  that  in 
speaking  or  writing  we  have  an  obligation  to  put  our- 
selves into  the  hearer's  or  reader's  place?  It  is  his  com- 
fort, his  convenience,  we  have  to  consult.  To  express 
ourselves  is  a  very  small  part  of  the  business:  very  small 
and  almost  unimportant  as  compared  with  impressing 
ourselves:  the  aim  of  the  whole  process  being  to  per- 
suade. 


344  ON  STYLE 

All  reading  demands  an  effort.  The  energy,  the  good- 
will which  a  reader  brings  to  the  book  is,  and  must  be, 
partly  expended  in  the  labour  of  reading,  marking, 
learning,  inwardly  digesting  what  the  author  means. 
The  more  difficulties,  then,  we  authors  obtrude  on  him 
by  obscure  or  careless  writing,  the  more  we  blunt  the 
edge  of  his  attention:  so  that  if  only  in  our  own  interest 
—  though  I  had  rather  keep  it  on  the  ground  of  cour- 
tesy—  we  should  study  to  anticipate  his  comfort. 

But  let  me  go  a  little  deeper.  You  all  know  that  a 
great  part  of  Lessing's  argument  in  his  Laokoon,  on  the 
essentials  of  Literature  as  opposed  to  Pictorial  Art  or 
Sculpture,  depends  on  this  —  that  in  Pictorial  Art  or  in 
Sculpture  the  eye  sees,  the  mind  apprehends,  the  whole 
in  a  moment  of  time,  with  the  correspondent  disadvan- 
tage that  this  moment  of  time  is  fixed  and  stationary; 
whereas  in  writing,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse,  we  can 
only  produce  our  effect  by  a  series  of  successive  small 
impressions,  dripping  our  meaning  (so  to  speak)  into 
the  reader's  mind  —  with  the  correspondent  advantage, 
in  point  of  vivacity,  that  our  picture  keeps  moving  all 
the  while.  Now  obviously  this  throws  a  greater  strain 
on  his  patience  whom  we  address.  Man  at  the  best  is  a 
narrow-mouthed  bottle.  Through  the  conduit  of  speech 
he  can  utter  —  as  you,  my  hearers,  can  receive  —  only 
one  word  at  a  time.  In  writing  (as  my  old  friend  Pro- 
fessor Minto  used  to  say)  you  are  as  a  commander  filing 
out  his  battalion  through  a  narrow  gate  that  allows  only 
one  man  at  a  time  to  pass;  and  your  reader,  as  he  re- 
ceives the  troops,  has  to  reform  and  reconstruct  them. 
No  matter  how  large  or  how  involved  the  subject,  it  can 
be  communicated  only  in  that  way.  You  see,  then, 
what  an  obligation  we  owe  to  him  of  order  and  arrange- 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         345 

ment;  and  why,  apart  from  felicities  and  curiosities  of 
diction,  the  old  rhetoricians  laid  such  stress  upon  order 
and  arrangement  as  duties  we  owe  to  those  who  honour 
us  with  their  attention.  "La  clarte,"  says  a  French 
writer,  "est  la  politesse."  Xdpict  kcll  aa^vda  Ode,  rec- 
ommends Lucian.  Pay  your  sacrifice  to  the  Graces, 
and  to  aa4>i}vtia  —  Clarity  —  first  among  the  Graces. 

What  am  I  urging?  "That  Style  in  writing  is  much 
the  same  thing  as  good  manners  in  other  human  inter- 
course? "  Well,  and  why  not?  At  all  events  we  have 
reached  a  point  where  Buffbn's  often-quoted  saying 
that  "Style  is  the  man  himself"  touches  and  coincides 
with  William  of  Wykeham's  old  motto  that  "Manners 
makyth  Man";  and  before  you  condemn  my  doctrine 
as  inadequate  listen  to  this  from  Coventry  Patmore, 
still  bearing  in  mind  that  a  writer's  main  object  is  to 
impress  his  thought  or  vision  upon  his  hearer. 

"There  is  nothing  comparable  for  moral  force  to  the 
charm  of  truly  noble  manners.  .  .  ." 

I  grant  you,  to  be  sure,  that  the  claim  to  possess  a 
Style  must  be  conceded  to  many  writers  —  Carlyle  is 
one  —  who  take  no  care  to  put  listeners  at  their  ease, 
but  rely  rather  on  native  force  of  genius  to  shock  and 
astound.  Nor  will  I  grudge  them  your  admiration. 
But  I  do  say  that,  as  more  and  more  you  grow  to  value 
truth  and  the  modest  grace  of  truth,  it  is  less  and  less 
to  such  writers  that  you  will  turn:  and  I  say  even  more 
confidently  that  the  qualities  of  Style  we  allow  them  are 
not  the  qualities  we  should  seek  as  a  norm,  for  they  one 
and  all  offend  against  Art's  true  maxim  of  avoiding 
excess. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  two  great  paradoxes  of 
Style.   For  the  first  (1), —  although  Style  is  so  curiously 


346  ON  STYLE 

personal  and  individual,  and  although  men  are  so  va- 
riously built  that  no  two  in  the  world  carry  away  the 
same  impressions  from  a  show,  there  is  always  a  norm 
somewhere;  in  literature  and  art,  as  in  morality.  Yes, 
even  in  man's  most  terrific,  most  potent  inventions  — 
when,  for  example,  in  Hamlet  or  Lear  Shakespeare  seems 
to  be  breaking  up  the  solid  earth  under  our  feet  —  there 
is  always  some  point  and  standard  of  sanity  —  a  Kent 
or  an  Horatio  —  to  which  all  enormities  and  passionate 
errors  may  be  referred;  to  which  the  agitated  mind  of 
the  spectator  settles  back  as  upon  its  centre  of  gravity, 
its  pivot  of  repose. 

(2)  The  second  paradox,  though  it  is  equally  true, 
you  may  find  a  little  subtler.  Yet  it  but  applies  to  Art 
the  simple  truth  of  the  Gospel,  that  he  who  would  save 
his  soul  must  first  lose  it.  Though  personality  pervades 
Style  and  cannot  be  escaped,  the  first  sin  against  Style 
as  against  good  Manners  is  to  obtrude  or  exploit  per- 
sonality. The  very  greatest  work  in  Literature  —  the 
Iliad,  the  Odyssey,  the  Purgatorio,  The  Tempest,  Para- 
dise Lost,  the  Republic,  Don  Quixote  —  is  all 

Seraphically  free 
From  taint  of  personality. 

And  Flaubert,  that  gladiator  among  artists,  held  that, 
at  its  highest,  literary  art  could  be  carried  into  pure 
science.  "I  believe,"  said  he,  "that  great  art  is  scien- 
tific and  impersonal.  You  should  by  an  intellectual 
effort  transport  yourself  into  characters,  not  draw 
them  into  yourself.  That  at  least  is  the  method."  On  the 
other  hand,  says  Goethe,  "We  should  endeavour  to  use 
words  that  correspond  as  closely  as  possible  with  what 
we  feel,  see,  think,  imagine,  experience,  and  reason. 


ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH         347 

It  is  an  endeavour  we  cannot  evade  and  must  daily 
renew."  I  call  Flaubert's  the  better  counsel,  even 
though  I  have  spent  a  part  of  this  lecture  in  attempting 
to  prove  it  impossible.  It  at  least  is  noble,  encouraging 
us  to  what  is  difficult.  The  shrewder  Goethe  encourages 
us  to  exploit  ourselves  to  the  top  of  our  bent.  I  think 
Flaubert  would  have  hit  the  mark  if  for  "impersonal" 
he  had  substituted  "disinterested." 

For  —  believe  me,  Gentlemen  —  so  far  as  Handel 
stands  above  Chopin,  as  Velasquez  above  Greuze,  even 
so  far  stand  the  great  masculine  objective  writers  above 
all  who  appeal  to  you  by  parade  of  personality  or  private 
sentiment. 

Mention  of  these  great  masculine  "objective"  writers 
brings  me  to  my  last  word:  which  is,  "Steep  yourselves 
in  them:  habitually  bring  all  to  the  test  of  them:  for 
while  you  cannot  escape  the  fate  of  all  style,  which  is  to 
be  personal,  the  more  of  catholic  manhood  you  inherit 
from  those  great  loins  the  more  you  will  assuredly 
beget." 

This  then  is  Style.  As  technically  manifested  in 
Literature  it  is  the  power  to  touch  with  ease,  grace, 
precision,  any  note  in  the  gamut  of  human  thought  or 
emotion. 

But  essentially  it  resembles  good  manners.  It  comes 
of  endeavouring  to  understand  others,  of  thinking  for 
them  rather  than  for  yourself — of  thinking,  that  is, 
with  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head.  It  gives  rather  than 
receives;  it  is  nobly  careless  of  thanks  or  applause,  not 
being  fed  by  these  but  rather  sustained  and  continually 
refreshed  by  an  inward  loyalty  to  the  best.  Yet,  like 
"character"  it  has  its  altar  within;  to  that  retires  for 


348  ON  STYLE 

counsel,  from  that  fetches  its  illumination,  to  ray  out- 
wards. Cultivate,  Gentlemen,  that  habit  of  withdraw- 
ing to  be  advised  by  the  best.  So,  says  Fenelon,  "you 
will  find  yourself  infinitely  quieter,  your  words  will  be 
fewer  and  more  effectual;  and  while  you  make  less  ado, 
what  you  do  will  be  more  profitable." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abstract   the,  and  the  concrete,  in 

style,  308. 
Accuracy    and    truth    contrasted, 

258. 
Adjective,  the,  the  enemy  of  the 

substantive,  314. 
Antinoiis,  statue  of,  188. 
Art,  does  not  compete  with  life, 

236. 
Art  for  art,  255. 
Artist,  the  aim  of  the,  summarized, 

256. 
Artist's  appeal,  the,  252. 
Arts,  the,  and  geometry  compared, 

236. 
Association    of   ideas,    effects    of, 

168. 
Austen,  Jane,  230. 
Author,   the,  compared  with   the 

painter,  211. 
Autobiography,  a  story  ordered  by 

life,  249. 

Bacon,  Francis,  14,  79,  302. 
Bailey,  Philip  James,  39. 
Balzac,  Honore  de,  243,  244. 
Beautiful  speech  is  kindly  speech, 

148. 
Beauty,  54,  119,  120,  145,  292. 

and  simplicity,  145. 

born  of  naturalness,  283. 

in  style,  307. 

of  plain  speech,  290. 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  336. 
Besant,  Walter,  210,  211,  212,  215, 
216,  218,  222,  223,  224,  225, 


226,  227,  228,  229,  232,  233, 

234- 
Blair,  Hugh,  91. 
Boileau,  208,  308. 
Borrow,  George,  79. 
Boswell,  James,  234,  235,  338. 
Bouilhet,  Louis,  206. 
Brevity,  essential  to  a  poem,  117. 

in  words,  95. 
Brewster,  William  Tenney,  xv. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  329,  334. 
Browning,  Robert,  153. 
Buchanan,  James,  86. 
Buffon,  Comte  de,  79,  345. 

prefatory  note  to  discourse  of, 

277. 
Bunsen,  Robert  Wilhelm,  43. 
Burke,  Edmund,  19,  21,  22,  23,  79, 

80,  172,  298. 
the  "dinner-bell  of  Parliament," 

22. 
Burton,  Robert,  328. 
Byron,  Lord,  85. 

Campbell,  George,  97. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  80,  85,  153,  161, 

235>  345- 
Characters,  Thackeray's  pleasure 

in  his,  264. 
Chateaubriand,  234. 
Chatham,  Earl  of,  80. 
Chaucer,  84,  233. 
Chesterton,  Gilbert  Keith,  334. 
Chopin,  347. 
Cicero,  321. 
Cobbett,  William,  327. 


35* 


INDEX 


Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  19,  101. 

College  for  writers,  proposed  by 
Emerson,  81. 

Commonplaces,  the  orator  re- 
stricted to,  20. 

Compression,  as  a  rhetorical  vir- 
tue, 80. 

Concrete,  the,  and  the  abstract,  in 
style,  308. 

Confucius,  83. 

Conrad,  Joseph,  xiv. 

prefatory  note  to  essay  of,  251. 

Cooper,  Lane,  xv,  277. 

Copleston,  Edward,  prefatory  note 
to  essay  of,  164. 

Coquelin,  236. 

Corrections,  endless  in  writing, 
267,  274. 

Coryate,  Thomas,  329. 

Cowper,  William,  332. 

Critic,  the,  essential  character- 
istics of,  193. 

Cromwell,  39. 

DeFoe,  Daniel,  80. 

De  la  Mare,  Walter,  338. 

Demosthenes,  321. 

Denouement,  the  guide  in  develop- 
ing a  story,  115. 

Denton,  George  B.,  90. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  prefatory 
note  to  essay  of,  295. 

Descartes,  302. 

Detaille,  Jean  Baptiste  fidouard, 
260. 

Dexter,  Samuel,  88. 

Dickens,  Charles,  114,  159,  230. 

Diderot,  Denis,  prefatory  note  to 
essay  of,  1 87. 


Disraeli,  Benjamin,  267. 

Dobell,  Sidney  Thompson,  prefa- 
tory note  to  paragraph  of,  23- 

Dumas,  the  elder,  159,  194,  230, 
242, 269. 
his  method  of  planning  a  story, 
271. 

Effect,  an,  as  the  goal  in  writing, 
115. 

Effect,  working  for,  54. 

Eliot,  George,  226. 

prefatory    notes    to    essays    of, 
138,  247. 

Eloquence,  contrasted  with  fa- 
cility, 278. 

Emerson,  Edward  Waldo,  77. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  47,  63,  73. 
prefatory  note  to  lecture  of,  77. 

Erasmus,  329. 

Estimate  of  an  author,  essentials  in 
making  an,  141. 

Eulenspiegel,  303. 

Experience,  personal,  the  basis  of 
good  literature,  36. 
defined,  213. 

Expression  and  the  social  classes, 
188. 

Fancies  to  which  one  cannot  adapt 
language,  131. 

Fenelon,  348. 

Feuillet,  Octave,  194. 

Fichte,  304,  306. 

Fiction,  its  appeal  to  tempera- 
ment, 253. 

"Fine  writing,"  70, 71. 

Flaubert,  Gustave,  xiv,  194,  219, 
220,  230,  346,  347. 


INDEX 


353 


Flaubert,  Gustave,  as  a  teacher  of 
Maupassant,  206. 

Fluency,  overvalued,  288. 

Fox,  Charles,  23,  80,  298. 

French  prose,  contrasted  with 
German,  319. 

French,  the,  mode  of  handling  nar- 
rative, 250. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  328. 

Garrick,  David,  310. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  233. 

Godwin,  William,  1 14. 

Goethe,  78,  79,  84,  194,  266,  315, 

346,  347- 
Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  226. 
Grace,  Marcel's  idea  of,  190. 
Grandiloquence,  the  sin  of,  271. 
Greuze,  Jean  Baptiste,  347. 

Handel,  347. 
Hardy,  Thomas,  242. 
Harris,  Frank,  340. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  218. 
Hazutt,  William,  xiv. 

prefatory  notes  to  essays  of,  14, 

3*3- 
Hegel,  306. 

Hegelians,  the  style  of,  304 
Henley,  William  Ernest,  251. 
Henry,  Patrick,  80. 
Herrick,  as  an  example  of  the  low 

style,  84. 
Hesiod,  31 4. 
Hogarth,  233. 
Homer,  233. 
Horace,  60. 

Howells,  William  Dean,  245. 
Hugo,  Victor,  195. 


Ibrahim  Pasha's  style,  290. 
Images  and  signs  in  thinking,  43. 
Imagination,  the  combining  of  the 

uncombined,  136. 
Insight,     fundamental     to     good 

writing,  34. 

Jamblichus,  289. 

James,  Henry,  193,  232,  233,  235, 
238,  239,  240,  241,  243. 
prefatory  note  to  essay  of,  210. 
Job,  the  style  of,  314. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  26,  85,  263,  325, 

33*- 
Jonson,  Ben,  177,  291. 
Journalism,  base,  influence  of,  154. 

Karnes  (Kaimes),  Lord,  92,  102. 
Keats,  John,  103. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  61. 

La  Fontaine,  250. 

Lamb,  Charles,  328. 

Language,   and   the   temper  of  a 
people.  1 49. 
noble,   the   expression   of  right 
thought,  147. 

Latham,  Robert  Gordon,  91. 

Latimer,  Hugh,  84. 

Latin  English,  94. 

Leland,  Charles  Godfrey,  5. 

Lessing,  344. 

Letters,   the   profession   of,   suffi- 
cient reason  for  adopting,  152. 

Lewes,   George   Henry,   prefatory 
note  to  chapters  of,  34. 

Lichtenberg,  Georg  Christoph,  310. 

Life  carried  on  by  difficult  art  of 
literature,  4. 


354 


INDEX 


Lincoln,  Abraham,  113. 

Literary   life   and    financial   gain, 

150. 
Literature  and  the  public,  54. 
Lowi  style,  effectiveness  of,  78. 
Lucan,  345. 
Luther,  79. 

Macaulay,  235. 

Mahomet,  83. 

Maquet,  Auguste,  242. 

Marcel,  190. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  325. 

Masaccio,  66. 

Maupassant,    Guy    de,    prefatory 

note  to  essay  of,  193. 
Mencius,  83. 

Men  of  genius,  abundance  of,  135. 
Mental  vision,  psychology  of,  40. 
Meredith,  George,  242,  343. 
Metonymy,  effectiveness  of,  86. 
Michelet,  Jules,  235. 
Milton,  63,  106,  159,234,338. 
a  subject  for  criticism,  173. 
Min to,  Professor,  340. 
Mirabeau,  80. 
Montaigne,  79,  84, 130. 
Morris,  William,  v. 
Motive,  a,  as  basis  of  a  story,  244. 
Mudie,  Charles  Edward,  233. 
Murray,  Lindley,  91. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  159. 

Naivete  in  style,  306. 

Napoleon,  39. 

Narrative,   of  real   or   imaginary 

events,  234. 
Naturalism,  196,  255. 
Newman,  John  Henry,  335. 


Nollet,  Rene,  277. 

Norris,  Frank,  prefatory  notes  to 

essays  of,  141,  258. 
Novel,  the,  a  personal  impression 
of  life,  210. 
classifications  of  discussed,  217. 
in  England  addressed  to  young 

people,  228. 
moral  purpose  in,  227. 
objective  and  analytical,  202. 
of  adventure,  238. 
of  character,  240. 

Objectivity  in  novel  writing,  202. 
O'Connell,  Daniel,  80. 
Openmindedness    in   judging    au- 
thors, 139, 195. 
Originality  in  versification,  124. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  267. 

Partiality,  immorality  of,  161. 

Patmore,  Coventry,  345. 

Payn,  James,  150. 

Personal  experience,  value  of,  34. 

Petrarch,  302. 

Phidias,  233. 

Pindar,  87. 

Plan,  required  by  style,  279. 

Plato,  39,  62,  80,  289,  318. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  prefatory  note 
to  essay  of,  114. 

Pope,  Alexander,  72,  159,  341. 

Preaching  in  novels,  271. 

Preface,  the,  as  a  field  for  the 
reviewer,  170. 

Principle  of  vision,  34. 

Principles,  literary,  to  grow  by,  23- 

Principles  of  style,  value  of  famil- 
iarity with,  91. 


INDEX 


355 


Psychology  of  mental  vision,  40. 
Public,  the,  and  literature,  54. 
Punctuation,  133. 

influence    of    on    sentence    ar- 
rangement, 297. 
Pythagoras,  289. 

Quiller-Couch,  Sir  Arthur,  prefa- 
tory note  to  lecture  of,  ^33- 
Quintilian,  313,  340. 

Rabelais,  79. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  289,  291 . 

Raphael,  39,  64,  66. 

Reade,  Charles,  233,  242. 

Realism,  38,  255. 

Realists,  really  illusionists,  201. 

Reflection,  the  necessity  of  before 

writing,  161. 
Reviewer,  the,  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple of,  165. 

his  judicial  capacity,  167. 

his  opportunity,  164. 
R.  L.  S.,  xiv. 
Romanticism,  255. 
Ruskin,  John,  xiv,  72,  74,  153. 

prefatory  note  to  lecture  of,  147. 

Saib,  King,  85. 

Saintsbury,  George,  xv. 

Salvini,  Tommaso,  233. 

Saunders,  T.  Bailey,  302. 

Saxon  English,  94. 

Schelling,  304,  306. 

Schiller,  315. 

Schopenhauer,    Arthur,    prefatory 

note  to  essay  of,  302. 
Scott,  Fred  Newton,  34,  90,  295. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  102,  273. 


Scotus  Erigena,  302. 
"Secret,  the,"  in  poetry,  192. 
Sentence     arrangement     and     the 

person  addressed,  107. 
Sentimentalism,  255. 
Shakespeare,  6,  12,  17,  47,  48,  50, 

51,  82,  83,  88,  102,  244,  300, 

3">  340,346. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  336. 
Sidgwick,  Henry,  323- 
Signs  and  images  in  thinking,  43. 
Simplicity,  the  difficulty  of  attain- 
ing, 144. 
the  superiority  of,  143. 
Sincerity,  as  related  to  vision,  69. 
the  principle  of,  54. 
the  value  of,  60. 
Slang,  326. 

and  neologisms,  339. 
Snorre  Sturleson,  83. 
Social  classes,  the,  and  expression, 

188. 
Socrates,  80. 
Speaking  and  writing,  distinction 

between,  15. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  prefatory  note 

to  essay  of,  90. 
Spinoza,  302. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  90,  250. 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  210,  226. 
prefatory    notes    to    essays    of, 

3,150,232. 
Stile  empese,  307,  312. 
Story,  a,  the  ways  of  telling,  247. 
Style,  chastity  of,  315. 

compared   with   good  manners, 

347- 
defined, 279. 
mechanic  and  organic,  295. 


35^ 


INDEX 


Style,  monumental,  or  epigraphic, 

312. 
naivete  in,  306. 

never  extraneous  ornament,  335. 
subjective  and  objective,  317. 
the  gaudy,  329. 
the  physiognomy  of  the  mind, 

302. 
the  two  great  paradoxes  of,  345. 
to  be  learned  on  the  farm  and  in 

the  shop,  292. 
vulgar  and  familiar  contrasted, 

3*3- 
warmth  of,  282. 
what  is  the  essence  of,  342. 
Style  coupi,  298. 
Style  soutenu,  299. 
"Style,  the,  is  the  man  himself," 

286. 
Sun,  New  York,  prefatory  note  to 

editorial  from,  III. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  80,  81,  263. 
Swinburne,  159. 
Symbolists,  the,  204. 

Tacitus,  235. 

Talent,  only  long  patience,  207. 
Tennyson,  39,  153. 
Thackeray,  xiv. 

prefatory  note  to  essay  of,  263. 
Thackeray's  pleasure  in  his  char- 
acters, 264. 
Thelwall's  Tribune,  19. 
Thompson,  Francis,  341. 
Thoreau,  Henry  David,  11. 

prefatory  note  to  essay  of,  288. 
Thoughts,  never  beyond  the  reach 

of  language,  131. 
Time  to  write,  the,  282. 


Titian,  39,  66. 

Tollemache,  Beatrix  L.,  187. 

Total  effect,  necessary,  280. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  159. 

True,  the,  the  good,  the  beautiful, 

191. 
Truth,   and   accuracy   contrasted, 

258. 
difficulty  of  telling,  3. 
Turgenieff,  Ivan,  219. 

Unity  of  effect,  necessity  of,  118. 

Velasquez,  347. 

Vergil,  187. 

Verisimilitude,    the    standard    in 

fiction,  259. 
Villon,  159. 
Vision,  clear,  in  genius,  47. 

the  criterion  of  genius,  45. 
Voltaire,  314. 

Walker,  William,  25. 
Whately,  Richard,  109. 
Whistler,  336. 
Whitman,  79,  81. 
Windham,  William,  19,  23. 
Wolf,  Christian,  306. 
Words,  capacity  of  to  absorb  and 
convey  feelings,  m. 

economy  in  the  sequence  ot,  98. 

force  of,  lies  in  their  application, 

327- 
general  and  specific,  97. 
imitative  character  of,  96. 
influence  of  on  ideas,  112. 
long,  advantage  of  at  times,   96 
specific  and  general,  97. 
suggestiveness  of,  254. 


INDEX 


357 


Wordsworth,  73,  233. 

Works  of  genius,  dearth  of,  136. 

Writer,  the,  influence  of,  153. 

moral  duty  of,  159. 
Writer's  spirit,  the,  importance  of, 

158. 
Writers  as  counsellors,  usefulness 
of,  xii. 


Writing  and  speaking,  distinction 

between,  15. 
Writing,    finishing     required     in, 

24. 
Wykeham,  William  of,  345. 
Wynne,  C,  29. 

Zola,  fimile,  194,  195,  221,  230. 


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